Chris, I truely empathize with your post. Ann Coulter gets Richard Melon Scaithe buying warehouses of books so she can get a best seller rating albeit with daggers! Why are talents like you on the blogosphere not getting big George Soros and other progressive deep pockets supporting your existence. This is needed to prevent the liberal brain drain to the private sector and keep pace with the right who nurture rather than cannibalize their own!
Bullshit. It's called getting paid for your time and expertise. And that's what Chris is talking about.
You've just said....'Oh my gawd, don't let real advertising in here or you'll be co-opted by them and become their lackey...you'll loose independence and be forced to write on their topics!'
Sorry in essence that's what you said. Chris can't live well on 40K although there might be somewhere in the country where a person can. He can't. Yet people constantly ask for permission to underpay him.
When another poster talks about his work being ripped of in violation of his copyright and circulated by progessives....it's a symptom of a larger problem I learned long ago.
Don't ask a progessive audience to pay for anything. It's all supposed to be free in the name of the 'cause'. Whether it's cheaper ads on MyDD or CD's by an artist or a teleconference...few if any are willing to spring for the cash that any other audience of supposedly motivated people, on a particular professional topic, would take for granted to gain access to the time and expertise of those people offering the time, expertise and, in this case, exposure (frequency and reach).
Sorry if this sounds harsh.
But making a good living doesn't mean you've sold out. This is a huge topic. And this tiny reply can't begin to address the real issue of the Blogs having developed this attitude that anyone who gets paid for something is automatically suspect.
And that's idiotic. People get paid for their experience. They get paid for the mistakes they've already made so they can show other how not to make them. They know a certain path and get paid to shine a light.
I admire Chris Bowers and the enormous price he's paid to get to this day. Thank you Chris.
Personally I think, knowing your prices, you should raise them for the balance of the electoral season. TV, Radio and Newpapers do...why not you?
This is a complex problem, and, with all due respect, it will not disappear merely by the issuance of some declarations of principles. After all, there are underlying realities. Maybe more than a year ago, I tentatively suggested, noting possible constraints on my suggestions, that people working for campaigns should not manage blogs. It looks like tat is not going to be the wave of the future. However, there still must be restraints of some kind.
Here is a new suggestion. Let paid campaign workers, and those who control the ads, who should still make their paid work well known, continue to have privileges to publish their "front page" stuff and have the ability to run most things on the blog, except for the management of the "back page" bloggers. It has been demonstrated time and again that social networking turns into a nightmare if you just let the back pagers prey upon each other. It is now commonly known that technical blogs such as digg, and slashdot are virtual killing fields. So without some labor on the part of blog proprietors to protect the desirable back pagers, social networks become overrun with stealth trolls. This is becoming very well established. In this sensitive task, we would want people who have no conscious or unconscious biases, so maybe this function should be done by core proprietors who do not do paid campaign work. I would suggest building this right into the software.
I realize that these blogs are ultimately owned by people who can do whatever they like. But there do need to be ethical standards. Of course, this suggestion could be as wrong as some of my other notions.
Most of what you write about I have NO knowledge about and since I've been blogging for years, while staffing with full disclosure when necessary, I feel your comment about:
It has been demonstrated time and again that social networking turns into a nightmare if you just let the back pagers prey upon each other. It is now commonly known that technical blogs such as digg, and slashdot are virtual killing fields. So without some labor on the part of blog proprietors to protect the desirable back pagers, social networks become overrun with stealth trolls. This is becoming very well established.
Blog owners who are campaign staffers will make their presence known when there is a conflict and I've never seen or known one who ignored his blog in the process.
Enjoy your belief system. I don't buy it's validity and doubt many do.
Of course...I really don't care either.
My experience has been nearly completely positive until I run into the occasional 'true believer' in one subject or another...and they just become a bore when they can't see the forest for the tree's and only focus on their own views.
Right now my primary blog Political Dogfight has over 400 posts and Political Interviews is creating it's own self-described content....so I don't think I'm inexperienced.
As I said before, however, enjoy your belief system...I have no need to write about it having fully expressed my own view.
BigDog said:
A. isn't obvious to very many B. applies only to community blogs and C. is a very narrow viewpoint.
Very narrow viewpoint? I think I have pointed out that this problem can be handled without too much difficulty if blog proprietors take basic measures to protect their bloggers.
Here's an example of people the potential fiasco is obvious to (in regard to examples that are the "technical blogs" I referred to):
http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/?p= 165
