Blogging:

The Future of News is Bloggy, May 6, 2008
And a blogger using Google shall lead them... (Congrats to Christian Grantham for the big scoop.)...

Deleting Trust, May 2, 2008
A reader of this blog sent me a cryptic message that one of our local dailies was actively deleting readers' comments posted to the paper's blogs, and in some cases was trying to "out certain subscribers depending on their viewpoint."...

The New American Courthouse, May 1, 2008
AmericanCourthouse.com, a blog I'm proud to say I had a little something to do with its launch, officially debuted Thursday (May 1). But the blog has actually been up and running for more than a month and drew more 1,120...

Blogger Beats Trial Lawyer At His Own Game, April 27, 2008
Legal Newsline tells the story of blogger Kathleen Seidel, who took on a powerful trial lawyer and won. In March, Seidel wrote a blog post documenting how trial lawyer Clifford Shoemaker of Virginia had turned autism and the debate over...

ACK is BACK, April 18, 2008
A.C. Kleinheider, who blogged brilliantly for WKRN Channel 2 for nearly two years at VolunteerVoters.com before 'KRN pulled the plug for budgetary reasons, has returned to the blogosphere today with Post Politics, at NashvillePost.com. The direct link to the free...

The Blogger Protection Act of 2008, April 16, 2008
New legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, would protect bloggers from Federal Election Commission restrictions. The "Blogger Protection Act of 2008," (H.R.5699) would give bloggers permanent protection from FEC campaign laws when linking to campaign Web sites or...

A Way To Help , April 15, 2008
Several years ago, early on in my blogging career, I encountered a blogger by the name of Jay Solo, who was organizing a weekly business-and-economics blogging "carnival" called the Carnival of the Capitalists. I hosted the CotC once or twice,...

Reinventing A Media Career, April 15, 2008
Her contract not renewed, ex-CNN anchor Daryn Kagan reinvented her career online with a website where she tells the stories she wants to tell, facilitated by cheap digital technology. How well did she do? Well enough to grab the attention...

All a'Twitter, April 14, 2008
Some time ago I set up my Twitter account but since doing I never have actually twittered, or tweeted, or whatever it's called. So I find it very amusing that hardly a day goes by without Twitter sending me an...

Krumm To Baghdad, April 4, 2008
I just got word from Nashville blogger extraordinaire Bob Krumm that he has been activated by the military and is being deployed to Iraq. Krumm emails, "I will be assigned to Multi National Corp-Iraq as an analyst. I'm looking forward...

VolunteerVoters.com is Really Gone, April 3, 2008
WKRN Channel 2 has a new website and VolunteerVoters.com is not listed under the blogs tab. In fact, if you try to go to VolunteerVoters.com, it redirects you to WKRN's Nashville Is Talking blog. How sad. One can only hope...

ACK Comes Back, March 26, 2008
A.C. Kleinheider lands on his feet. The hole in the Tennessee political newsmedia landscape will be filled....

A Night at the Newseum 2, March 26, 2008
Here's a video report from the bloggers' Night at the Newseum....

A Night at the Newseum, March 24, 2008
I was privileged to join a group of bloggers, along with TV news executives and personnel from the Washington DC area, for a reception and private tour of the soon-to-open Newseum in the nation's capital. In a word, it is...

AP Does It For Money, March 24, 2008
Brian C. Ledbetter looks at the Associated Press's "Do as we say, not as we do" approach to copyright law when it comes to using other people's photos....

Fair Use, March 15, 2008
Hoisting the AP on its own petard....

Gone, March 15, 2008
A.C. Kleinheider has signed off at WKRN's VolunteerVoters.com. Update: Budget cuts are to blame. Actually, I'm surprised WKRN kept Volunteer Voters going as long as it did after Mike Sechrist left the station and new, less new-media focused management took...

Fuel Cell Blogging, March 13, 2008
Tired of politics? I'm blogging a bit for the Fuel Cell Store on, you guessed it, fuel cells. Turns out there's a lot of news about fuel cells....

Half True?, March 12, 2008
Nathan Moore looks at some Harris Poll data and calculates that about half of voters read political blogs on a daily basis....

When It All Comes Together, March 12, 2008
YouTube's got video of Tampa Bay's MediaTalk - a webcast/podcast show - doing an interview with local syndicated columnist Joe O'Neill, who also publishes the OpinionsToGoOnline.com website. Let's recap: The Internet has video of a radio show-like webcast/podcast interview of...

The Next Social Network, March 10, 2008
Could the WordPress blogging app be the next "social networking" platform? A blog post about that from last December just crossed my digital radar screen, and I found it interesting - especially these thoughts:In contrast to social networking, blogging offers...

Journalism, New and Old, March 8, 2008
A couple of stories about journalism caught my eye this morning, including this from PR Week:In the run-up to last month's Washington State presidential primaries, 16 young journalists covered the campaign events of nearly every Presidential contender to visit the...

Newsflash: AP Sues Blogger, March 2, 2008
The Associated Press has launched a legal jihad against a blogger who posted examples of photojournalism bias and fakery (faux-tography). My guess is they won't get far....

The Blogs of Hazzard, February 16, 2008
Knoxville journalist Jack Lail has some thought about bloggers and Boss Hogg....

Suing a Blog, February 12, 2008
A Nashville couple is suing bloggers who they say libeled them on a blog. I've never heard of the blog or know anything about the case, but there are a few basic things to know about libel law. 1. Truth...

City Paper Seeks Bloggers, February 1, 2008
The Nashville City Paper has added an interesting new feature to the blogs platform I built for them last year, before I started my current job: the option for registered users of the paper's website to create their own blog...

Bowing to The New Blogged Reality, January 17, 2008
The Associated Press reports that the state of New Hampshire is getting out of the business of issuing identification cards to members of the news media.The man who handled the chore - Jim Van Dongen of the state Department of...

He Needed a Fact-Checker, January 15, 2008
Former U.S. Sen. Tom Daschle, D-North South Dakota, speaking in Nashville Tuesday night said this:"(Issues and politics) are more transparent. The electronic media brings it into the living room. Internet and bloggers are another element. There are no editors on...

Tennessean: Politicians, Blogging!, January 6, 2008
The Sunday Tennessean says, "Some elected officials aren't relying on newspapers or TV stations to report on local government - they're blogging about it. At least two local politicians are following the lead of state and national reps by setting...

NYT Seeks Bloggers, December 27, 2007
The New York Times Co. is looking for a blogger to write for LifeWire.com, its new "online content startup" that is intended "to create and distribute lifestyle-oriented articles to top Web publishers." Initial clients include About.com and Weather.com, for whom...

Blogging for Dollars, December 26, 2007
The AP reports on bloggers who are making money blogging. And not just pocket change....

A Refresher Course in the First Amendment, December 14, 2007
University of Georgia journalism professor (and former NBC correspondent) David Hasinski needs a refresher course in the First Amendment. Hasinski wrote a column for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution asserting that Big Journalism should "monitor and regulate" bloggers, and J-schools should "certify"...

From the Department of Not-Quite-Getting-It, December 14, 2007
The communications office of Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has produced the first of what is planned as a weekly "New Media Hot Sheet" round-up of blog political coverage. Oddly, the New Media Hot Sheet is published as a Microsoft Word...

Entrepreneurial Mind 2.0, December 12, 2007
Dr. Jeff Cornwall's blog, The Entrepreneurial Mind, has been redesigned....

Wanna Blog the GOP Convention?, December 10, 2007
The Republican National Committee has announced its credentialling process for bloggers wanting to cover the Republican National Convention Sept. 1-4, 2008, in Minneapolis....

More CNN/YouTube Debate Plants, November 29, 2007
Michelle Malkin is exposing more of the planted Democrat questioners in the CNN/YouTube Republican Presidential Debate. The questioner who asked about abortion is a declared supporter of Democrat John Edwards. The "Log Cabin Republican" questioner is, it turns out, not...

On the Radio, November 13, 2007
I just finished a call-in to Michael DelGiorno's show on Nashville radio station Supertalk 99.7 WTN. I'm going to be doing a by-phone appearance on his show weekly, every Monday, shortly after 10 a.m., discussing politics of course. You can...

Bootstrap Blogging, November 11, 2007
Jeff Cornwall's column in the Sunday Tennessean looks at the value of blogging as a marketing tool for small business.Blogging has become a popular tool for bootstrap marketing. One recent survey found that 10 percent of small businesses were using...

Niche-Picking the News, November 1, 2007
As I mentioned I would last week, I participated in a panel discussion today for the 2007-2008 Leadership Nashville class on its "Nashville Government and Media Day." Also on the panel, moderated by WKRN's Bob Mueller: Nashville Scene editor Liz...

Wild Fires Fan Citizen Journalism Flames, October 27, 2007
The Baltimore Sun reports on the big role that citizen journalists played in the MSM's coverage of the Southern California wildfires.From dramatic cell phone camera images of flames as they choked off neighborhood escape routes to chilling online narratives of...

MSM Blogs Alter Campaign Coverage, October 27, 2007
Washington Post media writer Howard Kurtz says the mushrooming number of political blogs on newspaper and magazine web sites "has altered the terrain of the 2008 election."Campaign officials have learned to feed the bottomless pit of these constantly updated compilations,...

Venture Capital Blogging, October 22, 2007
The Boston Globe had a very interesting story in late September about venture capital firms and blogs, which I didn't see until yesterday. Scott Kirsner, who writes the paper's weekly "Innovation Economy" column focusing on entrepreneurship, technology, and venture capital...

ConvergeSouth, and BlogWorld Expo, October 9, 2007
This year's ConvergeSouth is once again drawing close. It's Oct. 19-20 in Greensboro, N.C. Sadly, this will be the third year in a row that I've missed it, although this year's conference agenda seems less applicable to my new job...

And They Had Pastries, October 4, 2007
I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel today, sponsored by the local offices of Business Wire, on the topic of "SEO, Blogging and Social Media." Also on the panel: Dave Delaney (bio - scroll down), New Media Manager...

Less ACK, September 27, 2007
The Nashville Scene reveals how the new regime at WKRN is altering its approach to the blogosphere.The station has also made relatively sweeping changes in the way it uses blogs, eliminating a substantial number of them, creating a new one...

Change or Die, September 27, 2007
Blogger Robert Laird says, "journalists have a hard lesson to learn about the Internet," warning, "If they refuse to restructure their minds to accommodate it, they will become obsolete curiosities within a few years, no matter how superior they feel."...

Atlas Mugged, September 25, 2007
Ed Driscoll has written an excellent essay on the relationship between blogs and the mainstream media, with an eye, too, on how that relationship will continue to evolve. The article is Atlas Mugged: How a Gang of Scrappy, Individual Bloggers...

Government in the Age of Web 2.0, September 20, 2007
The IBM Center on The Business of Government recently published a report on blogging in the public sector, titled "The Blogging Revolution: Government in the Age of Web 2.0." Very interesting stuff. It's a free download (Link. 99-page PDF) The...

Be the Elephant, September 12, 2007
Consider this a last call for any bloggers interested in applying to become the primary writer at ElephantBiz.com, a blog about Republican and conservative politics published by the Know More Media network of blogs. If you're interested, email me at...

House-Blogger, September 8, 2007
Robert Glen Dean, one of the many Tennessee bloggers whose thoughts on Fred Thompson are included in my new book Who Is Fred Thompson? Tennessee Bloggers Debate the Candidate's Conservative Credentials, has a pretty nifty real estate blog, especially if...

Round 2, September 4, 2007
Here we go again. The Seattle Times reports that some regulatory types in Washington state are thinking about regulating political blogs in some fashion:The rapid growth of political blogs and Web sites has attracted the attention of [Washington] state elections...

Entrepreneurial Blogging, August 16, 2007
I've written a post today at Mesh Media Strategies about the use of blogs as a bootstrap marketing tool for academic programs....

Take the Survey, Please, August 11, 2007
Please take my Blog Reader Project survey....

Don't Vote For Me!, August 10, 2007
My blog ElephantBiz.com has been nominated for a Bloggers Choice Award in the "Best Political Blog" category, though I think it's a little like being nominated for the Nobel Prize - anybody can nominate anybody. Don't vote for me. I've...

Bloggers Unite!, August 9, 2007
Jeff Jarvis giggles at left-wing bloggers who want to form a union. I dunno. I still think the idea of liberal bloggers going on strike has a certain appeal. Especially if it's a long-term work stoppage....

Big News from Google, August 8, 2007
Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion comments on some very big news from Google News, in a post today titled Google News Now Has Feedback, Editing and More Risk. Read on for details......

The Incredible Shrinking Blogosphere, August 8, 2007
Blogger Steve Rubel ("Micropersuasion") looks at The Case of the Incredible Shrinking Blogosphere - and why the rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" formats indicate a cultural shift - in a piece published at AdAge.com. David Evans at Catalyst Code...

Journalistic Quality Control, August 7, 2007
The Washington Post has either redefined the meaning of the words "war veteran," or failed to do some basic fact-checking about DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas, who likes to link his military service to the Persian Gulf War even though his...

The Economics of Blogging, August 7, 2007
"Hundreds of millions of people globally either operate blogs or contribute to them over the course of the year. With 1.5 million new postings a day, blogging likely consumes billions of hours of effort globally," writes David S. Evans, co-author...

Congress Aims to Extend Shield Law to Bloggers, August 2, 2007
Here's some ">good news for bloggers - and for the First Amendment: A House panel voted Wednesday to shield journalists from having to reveal their confidential sources in many situations - and extended the protection to bloggers who derive "financial...

Buh Bye MovableType, Hello Wordpress, August 1, 2007
After spending 20 minutes of my life that I'll never get back deleting a flood of comments spam from my blog I've come to the conclusion that MovableType blogging software - I'm running the very latest version - no longer...

Sprechen sie Deutsch? *, July 30, 2007
Here's a nice bit of citizen-journalism investigating the demise of German language classes at Wilson Central High School in Lebanon, TN, a bit east of Nashville. A nice video news report - and, really, about as good as what you'll...

Will They Never Learn?, July 28, 2007
A stupid company with stupid lawyers is commencing legal action against a Nashville blogger. They should have read this first (and all the prior related posts linked within). Memo to Jackson Miller: Post every document you receive from the lawyers....

Blogging the NCSL Convention, July 25, 2007
Aldon Hynes, a liberal blogger in Connecticut, reports that he's registered to cover the National Conference of State Legislatures' 2007 convention, August 5-9 in Boston. Thanks to the work I did last year to convince the NCSL to media-credential bloggers...

How to Build Media Credibility, July 24, 2007
The Chicago Tribune considers the link between transparency and credibility and urges the news media deploy more of the former in order to increase its share of the latter. The link, and my thoughts, at Mesh Media Strategies today....

Harper's Versus the Bloggers, July 21, 2007
BlackFive takes a hatchet to an attack by Harper's magazine on bloggers."You're not a real journalist" is his way of saying "only professionals like me should be allowed to talk to high officials, not uncredentialed folks like you." This is...

Over the Backfence, July 18, 2007
I'm writing about hyperlocal journalism vs. citizen journalism, and the failure of Backfence.com, over at Mesh Media Strategies. Click here for the latest....

This Site For Sale?, July 16, 2007
I got an email the other day asking me if I would sell this domain name, billhobbs.com. I said I would start to consider it at $150,000. If you owned your own name as a web domain name would you...

Backfence Down, July 16, 2007
My latest post at Mesh Media Strategies looks at the impending demise of Backfence.com....

Buh Bye NashvilleIsTalking.com?, July 6, 2007
WKRN Channel 2 in Nashville is apparently no longer committed to the blogosphere in the way it was when Mike Sechrist was the station's general manager. I have a look at the situation at Mesh Media Strategies, and a business-model...

Value-Added Blogs, June 30, 2007
I've written some additional thoughts about The City Paper's new blogs and revamped web site over here at Mesh Media Strategies....

That's Meshed Up, June 30, 2007
I have launched a revamped website for Mesh Media Strategies....

Free Daily Pays Readers to Blog, June 30, 2007
Have you heard about the free city daily newspaper that has launched a cool new blogging project? Well, yes, you say, The City Paper is launching four new blogs. That's true - and I'm anticipating good things from the Nashville...

Extreme Web Makeover: The City Paper, June 29, 2007
The Nashville City Paper's revamped website is set to go live sometime later tonight, last I heard. The new site has links to four new City Paper blogs. You can see them here. I built them, though I won't be...

The New Nashville City Blogs, June 27, 2007
The Nashville Scene reports on the coming makeover of the online presence of Nashville's The City Paper, a makeover I'm proud to say I have been involved with. My involvement, via my Mesh Media Strategies, has been designing and building...

MikeSechrist.com, June 27, 2007
WKRNGM.com, the blog of former WKRN Channel 2 General Manager Mike Sechrist, who integrated blogs with WKRN's newsroom, now redirects to MikeSechrist.com, and he recently posted his first blog post since leaving WKRN on May 4....

Moving On, June 27, 2007
I've been working a lot lately on some interesting projects including one you'll soon be hearing a lot more about. One of the projects involves building a series of blogs for a client, and while most of my experience in...

"Freedom of the Press" Doesn't Mean the Media, June 26, 2007
Gene Policinski, vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, writes in an essay published by the American Press Institute about the impact of bloggers and other grassroots media on the definition of the "free press" discussed in...

Forecast: Scattered Bloggage, June 25, 2007
Well, lookie there, it's been six days since I posted anything here. But I've not disappeared entirely from the blogosphere. I've been posting a lot at ElephantBiz.com and at Ecotality. Light posting here will continue for quite awhile - at...

Exit, June 7, 2007
WKRN's Brittney Gilbert, the first full-time paid blogger the history of local teevee news has resigned from the station. The City Paper covers it. Let the inevitable speculation about the future of NashvilleIsTalking.com begin. Although, as the City Paper writer...

Researching State-Focused Political Blogs, June 4, 2007
Emily Metzgar, a doctoral student at Louisiana State University, is doing research on impact of blogs on state politics around the country. She has an online survey here, designed to gather information about partitipants' political views; their state-focused, politically-oriented blog...

Birthday Blogging, June 1, 2007
The Tennessee Republican Party's 31st Annual Statesmen's Dinner is tomorrow night in Nashville at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel and Convention Center, and honored guests at the event will include former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob...

Push Button Men, May 31, 2007
Instapundit has the links to a local blog "dust-up" that, I must admit, I hadn't followed for a nanosecond and have no plans to weigh in on....

Blogger Sued, May 24, 2007
A Hawaii blogger is being sued by someone who wants to force the blogger to give up her confidential sources......

Growing the "Red" Blogosphere, May 22, 2007
"Growing the 'Red' Blogosphere" - now posted at TechRepublican.com....

On the Blogroll... Really, May 16, 2007
Several months ago I mentioned a new blog that I thought would be a good one to put on your blogroll, and then I promptly forgot to add it to my blogroll. It's called Webutante, by Jane Whitson, a former...

On Blogging..., May 9, 2007
Lawyer-blogger Ann Althouse has an interesting post on the ethics of lawyer-blogging. ... Karl Kurtz at the National Conference of State Legislatures' blog The Thicket has a post on the Top 10 Reasons for Elected Officials to Blog. ......

Legislation Would Create Journalism Shield Law for Bloggers Who Do Journalism, May 6, 2007
Bloggers engaged in journalistic pursuits would be granted immunity from divulging confidential sources under a new bill pending in both chambers of Congress. The proposed federal shield law would extend to anyone engaged in journalism - not just to reporters...

Clueless in South Carolina, May 6, 2007
The South Carolina Press Association kicked a blogger out of an event the impact of blogs on the legislative process was discussed. Ironic, huh? Well, not really. The SCPA represents the state's newspapers, which no doubt feel threatened by the...

Survey Says..., May 4, 2007
Blogads is doing their fourth annual survey of blog readers, which generates tons of useful data on blog readership. Please take my blog reader survey! Everyone who participates gets a free subscription to BillHobbs.com....

Googling State Government, April 30, 2007
Google plans to announce today that it is working with officials in state government in Arizona, California, Utah and Virginia to make sure all the public information they have online is easily accessible through the company's search engine......

Blogging for Dollars...and Other New-Media Stuff, April 21, 2007
Blogger & Podcaster is a new magazine about, well, you can guess. On the mag's home page, click the cover image to read the premiere issue free online. Also, the Boston Globe recently published a story about blogging for dollars....

Virginia Tech, April 20, 2007
Matthew Ingram at WebProNews.com looks at how citizen journalism covered the Virginia Tech massacre.As horrific as the circumstances at Virginia Tech were, as a journalist it was fascinating to watch the information about the shootings filter out through the students...

Settlement, April 18, 2007
Nashville City Paper reports on the settlement of the Coble/JL Kirk case in which JL Kirk Associates threatened to sue Nashville blogger Katherine Coble because she criticized them on her blog....

Coble Case Settled, April 17, 2007
JL Kirk Associates has backed down and won't be suing blogger Katherine Coble after all. The link goes to Coble's final post explaining the settlement. The blogosphere owes a huge "thank you" to attorney Ron Coleman of Bragar, Wexler &...

Suing a Blogger: Sixth Update, April 16, 2007
The Nashville City Paper covers the story of the blogger and the company that threatened to sue her, giving yet more bad publicity to JL Kirk Associates. Among the quoted: Media Bloggers Association general counsel Ron Coleman, who is representing...

Lessons Learned?, April 16, 2007
The anonymous blogger at WebConnectConsulting.com is correct in his assessment of how JL Kirk Associates blundered in threating to sue a blogger over a critical blog post:If you have a small business and you are not participating in a discussion...

Movin' On Up, April 16, 2007
Law professor/blogger Glenn Reynolds reports that his Libel in the Blogosphere paper became a much more popular download at the Social Science Research Network website in the wake of the Katherine Coble / JL Kirk / King & Ballow affair...

Suing A Blogger: Fifth Update, April 14, 2007
WKRN's Brittney Gilbert reports on the saga of JL Kirk Associates, a critical blogger, and a lawsuit threat that backfired big time. Also, "S-Town Mike" at Enclave has more on JL Kirk Associates' new-found online fame. And it's not good...

Suing a Blogger: Fourth Update, April 13, 2007
Ripples from the threat of a lawsuit against Nashville blogger Katherine Coble over a blog post she wrote critical of JL Kirk Associates, a "career search" firm that tried to get her and her husband to pay nearly $4,500 up...

Suing A Blogger: Third Update, April 12, 2007
Katherine Coble, the Nashville blogger threatened with a lawsuit, now has legal representation, arranged by the Media Bloggers Association. (For background, see the two prior posts.) If you're a blogger and you're not a member of the MBA ... you...

Suing a Blogger Update, April 12, 2007
With the fallout continuing for Nashville law firm King & Ballow and the Nashville office of the "career search experts" firm JL Kirk Associates over the law firm's ill-advised decision to threaten a blogger with a libel suit because she...

Suing a Blogger, April 11, 2007
Big, powerful law firms like Nashville's King & Ballow really ought to hire someone with journalistic and new media experience to advise them on how to handle clients who complain about things published by bloggers. Then they wouldn't do stupid...

Can Blogging Help You Get A Job?, April 10, 2007
For some people, the answer is yes....

Positive ROI, March 21, 2007
A few days ago I mentioned Belmont Center for Entrepreneurship director Jeff Cornwall's new gig writing a regular column for The Tennessean on the subject of entrepreneurship, an outgrowth of Cornwall's blog The Entrepreneurial Mind. Well, that's just one of...

It Worked Just As I Said It Would, March 18, 2007
More than three years ago I introduced myself to Dr. Jeff Cornwall, the new director of the Belmont University Center for Entrepreneurship and a professor of management, and suggested he start a blog as a way to raise to public...

"No More Noble Missions", March 18, 2007
"Puppies for Peace" was my favorite hand-scrawled sign among those held by the 100-150 antiwar protesters who marched through downtown Nashville Saturday. It was carried by a man with a dog on a leash. The dog's true feelings about the...

Bloggers and Libel, March 15, 2007
The Thursday edition of The Tennessean has a rather good story on bloggers and libel law. If you blog, read it. Then read up on libel law. Then make sure that the facts you state on your blog are, indeed,...

Gatekeepers Without a Fence, March 11, 2007
Mark A. Phillips: Traditional journalists don't get to decide who's a "real journalist" anymore.. Not that they ever should have in the first place. The First Amendment wasn't written for "journalists," it was written for Americans. Journalism is a craft,...

Breaking News, March 9, 2007
Michael Silence, the reporter/blogger at the Knoxville News Sentinel is running rings around the The Tennessean's political reporters and their blog on the Fred Thompson story. Like I said the other day, there's a difference between a newspaper having blogs...

Spiked, March 7, 2007
Bob Krumm has the nitty gritty details on the collateral damage from the Al Gore Energy Hog story that I mentioned was coming. As the Nashville Scene reveals today, The Tennessean had Gore's utility usage data for more than a...

"Blogger Day" at Legislative Plaza, March 5, 2007
The Tennessee House Republican Caucus is inviting all Tennessee political bloggers to a caucus-sponsored "Blogger Day On The Hill" at Legislative Plaza in Nashville on March 26th and 27th (Yes, Blogger Day On The Hill" is spread over two days,...

Thanks, Al, March 5, 2007
In my five-plus years of blogging, I've experienced a number of "Instalanches" and even had a few of my posts linked by the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com and Howard Kurtz's media column on WashingtonPost.com, and I've seen big traffic spikes...

The Ongoing Evolution of the Blogosphere, March 1, 2007
Social Media in general will continue to evolve both in terms of its technology and in terms of its role online an in society at large. As it evolves, the things that we call blogs now will change and...

The Left's Love Affair With Carlin's Seven Dirty Words, March 1, 2007
If you have ever spent much time on the Left side of the political blogosphere, especially among the bigger Lefty blogs, you probably came away with the same impression I did: those folks are very foul-mouthed. Now there is data...

Good Advice for Bloggers, Too, February 24, 2007
Jeff Jarvis has good advice for newspapers: Cover what you do best. Link to the rest. That's good advice for bloggers, too. As always with a Jeff Jarvis posting, read the whole thing....

Bloggers Day at Legislative Plaza, February 23, 2007
David Oatney has some thoughts about the plans for a Bloggers' Day at the Tennessee legislature in the near future. While I praise the House Republican leadership for planning such a thing, I believe they are making a mistake...

Prepare to Be Blogged, February 23, 2007
"Thanks to the Internet, and blogs in particular, disgruntled customers have more power than ever," says Travel Weekly aviation editor Andrew Compart in a report on how blogs are playing a central role in the push for Congress to pass...

A Digital Demonstration, February 22, 2007
Environmental activists planning a day of distributed demonstrations April 14 across the country are also hoping to employ social media to multiply the impact: From WorldChanging.com: In the spirit of the age, we've designed this be a distributed day of...

Ignoring the Coming Ice Age, February 19, 2007
They had a social-media conference at Kennesaw State University recently similar to the BlogNashville conference of May 2005, and the Atlanta media ignored it. Just like the mastadons ignored that increasing chill in the air. (Hat tip: Ben. C.)...

The Combat Of Ideas, February 16, 2007
The Washington Post profiles political blogger Michelle Malkin....

Paper: We Ignore Some News, February 15, 2007
A big feature story in the Thursday Tennessean about the growing use of video blogs, or vlogs, in political and other marketing efforts, begins with an indictment of the paper itself along with the rest of the local mainstream media:When...

Listening is Job 1, February 10, 2007
AdAge says Ford Motor Co. - which recently reported some eye-popping losses - "is joining the ranks of marketers realizing listening is as big a part of their jobs as talking."The automaker is the latest to join the search for...

Mine the Blogs, February 9, 2007
Business Week has a look at the potential perils of a company's employees writing about the company on their personal blogs.In the past couple of years, many high-tech corporations have discerned an upside to employee blogging. For instance, company-sanctioned employee...

Anti-Blogger Legislation Would Have Violated Federal Law, Expert Says, February 2, 2007
Legal expert Jack Balkin looks at legal issues raised by proposed state laws - including the anti-blogger legislation pushed by Tennessee state Sen. Jamie Woodson and state Rep. Rob Briley - that would hold bloggers responsible for defamatory statements made...

Is That Defamatory?, February 2, 2007
Wes Comer has produced a funny cartoon about the rise and subsequent smackdown by bloggers and the City Paper of Sen. Jaime Woodson's anti-blogger legislation. Click the 'toon for Comer's accompanying commentary....

Texas Too, February 2, 2007
National Journal's Danny Glover (not the actor) takes note of the anti-blogger legislation filed in the Tennessee legislature, and recalls that anti-blogger legislation was filed in Texas recently. Bloggers forced that legislator into retreat too, though the Texas bill was...

Inconsistencies in Anti-Blogger Legislation Explanations, February 2, 2007
A.C. Kleinheider spotlights the inconsistencies in state Rep. Rob Briley's explanations about the anti-blogger legislation he filed in the state legislature. Briley first defended the bill, then says he filed it inadvertently. Meanwhile, Sen. Jamie Woodson, who asked Briley to...

Army Intelligence, February 1, 2007
Ben Cunningham passed along this link from the FOIA Blog.The Electronic Frontier Foundation ("EFF") has filed suit against the Department of Defense ("DOD") in its attempt to get information about the Army Web Risk Assessment Cell ("AWRAC"). News reports in...

An Assualt on Web Writers?, February 1, 2007
!!! UPDATE !!! State Rep. Rob Briley says he will withdraw his anti-blogger legislation on Monday. See his statement at the end of this post. !!! Also: The state Senator backing the anti-blogger legislation has been identified. See the update...

Bloggers Gone Wild, January 29, 2007
ABC News has a fascinating story, headlined Blogging Gone Wild, out of the Virginia state legislature, where the minority Democratic Party is using modern video technology in its latest political tactic against the Republican majority. There's a lesson in this...

Memo to the Media, January 29, 2007
Hey MSM: There's a conservative "netroots" too....

Blogger Bags a Top State Official, January 29, 2007
Maine blogger Lance Dutson deservedly dances the happy dance over the firing of an apparently corrupt Maine bureaucrat brought down by Dutson's intrepid investigative reporting published on his blog, the Maine Web Report. Making the sacking of Maine Tourism Director...

Blogging Scholarship, January 26, 2007
The Daniel Kovach Scholarship Foundation is offering a $2,000 college scholarship to a political blogger. To qualify you need to be a U.S. citizen attending college full-time and have a 3.0 GPA - and you must write a blog that...

The Blogger and the Chocolate Factory, January 25, 2007
Here's an interesting story out of Dallas about how a bad review on a blog can impact a company's image:Last month, an anonymous Internet blogger launched a 10-part series concluding that Noka Chocolate, whose expensive confections have turned up at...

AP To Carry Bloggers' Coverage of Libby Trial, January 24, 2007
WASHINGTON DC, January 23, 2006 - The Associated Press has partnered with the Media Bloggers Association to distribute its members' coverage of the trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, to the...

Define Success, January 23, 2007
Dana Blankenhorn says righty blogs don't work. But he's a liberal, so you would expect him to say that....

Just the Facts?, January 21, 2007
Bob Cox compares Big Media and blogger coverage of the Scooter Libby trial...It was no small irony for me to watch this while reading some of the media coverage of the courts decision to credential bloggers to the Libby Trial....

Huh?, January 19, 2007
I just saw where the Nashville Scene took a bizarre shot at me in its un-bylined "Off Limits" column in this week's edition. The unseen Scene scribe wrote......

Free Speech Safe For Now, January 18, 2007
Good news from the U.S. Senate: Republicans have managed to kill a proposal backed by most Senate Democrats that would have subjected ministers, neighborhood groups and possibly some bloggers to stringent lobbyist reporting requirements and possible criminal fines from a...

Blogs: "The columnists of Today's Consumer Web", January 18, 2007
Jack Lail, managing editor/multimedia for the Knoxville News Sentinel has written a must-read post over at his Random Mumblings blog about the growth of readership for blogs on newspaper websites. Read his whole post to find out why he says,...

Live-Blogging the Libby Trial, January 18, 2007
Media Bloggers Association President Bob Cox is one of the MBA-member bloggers live-blogging the perjury trial of Scooter Libby, former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney. Check it out at WordsInEdgewise. The trial just began Tuesday and is in the...

Criminalizing Free Speech, January 17, 2007
The Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate is moving to restrict your free speech rights in a big, big way. Section 220 of Senate Bill 1, the lobbying reform bill legislation currently before the U.S. Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who...

Bredesen's Interview With The Tennessean: Hear It For Yourself, January 17, 2007
Last week, The Tennessean published a story based on an interview the paper did with Gov. Phil Bredesen at the start of his second term in office, which I blogged about here. While the paper is making some steps...

Blogger-Legislature Relations Update, January 15, 2007
Nicole Moore has an update over at the NCSL's blog The Thicket to her story in the January edition of State Legislatures magazine re bloggers covering state legislatures....

"The YouTube Effect Will Be Even More Intense", January 15, 2007
"Although the BBC, CNN, and other international news operations employ thousands of professional journalists, they will never be as omnipresent as millions of people carrying a cell phone that can record video," writes Foreign Policy magazine editor Moises Naim in...

Papers Chase, January 15, 2007
Chris Peck, editor of the Memphis Commercial Appeal wrote a very long column in the paper's Sunday edition defending traditional newspapers' place in the fast-changing world of media, squeezed by corporate ownership, shrinking readership and the emergence of citizens' media...

Jamil Hussein Update, January 14, 2007
Powerline has a pretty good summary of the state of things in the questions that still swirl around the Associated Press's mysterious source in Baghdad, Jamil Hussein. Powerline:The AP has made no attempt to explain how Mr. Hussein (or whatever...

The Changing Media Landscape, January 13, 2007
The Press-Herald in Portland, Maine, profiles Lance Dutson, one of the Media Bloggers Association member bloggers who will be covering the trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, in U.S. District Court in...

All the Right Blogs, January 12, 2007
Over at ElephantBiz.com today: Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and Democratic presidential retread hopeful John Edwards have bought blog ads very early in the '08 election cycle. But are they advertising on all the right blogs?...

WaPo: Bloggers to Sit With Media at Libby Trial, January 11, 2007
Today's Washington Post reports that bloggers will be among the credentialed news media at the trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, which starts next week. Noting that "scores of...

A Blog Post About Speaking About Blogs, January 11, 2007
I'm speaking to the Nashville chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators about - what else - blogging and social media today, so I've been busy touching up the notes and getting ready. Forecast: Light bloggage the rest of...

Exposing the Insiders' Game, January 10, 2007
Mike Chapman, government affairs and public policy specialist at AnthonyBarnum PR in Austin, Texas, tells a fascinating tale of how the new media "injected itself into the process" of the "ultimate insiders' game" in Texas politics: the election of the...

Time Waits For No Blog, January 8, 2007
Time magazine is "again reinventing itself online, this time by revamping its site to emphasize breaking news and blogs," revamping its website to include more-rapid news updates, news aggregation from multiple sources, and blogs. MediaPost.com reports. A key new feature:...

Government Blogs, January 7, 2007
The blogger at Texans for Fiscal Responsibility criticizes the Houston public transit system for hiring a blogger.The writer the Texas Government Insider ... reports that "Houston's Metropolitan Transit Authority plans to unveil a Web blog in the next few months...

NCSL Surveys Blogger-Legislature Relations, January 4, 2007
The January 2007 edition of State Legislatures, the monthly magazine of the National Conference of State Legislatures, has a lengthy story about whether bloggers who cover their state legislature should be granted press credentials. While the NCSL normally puts its...

Memphis' Best Investigative Reporter Is..., January 4, 2007
Memphis Flyer political writer Jackson Baker profiles John Harvey, Memphis' best and most technology-savvy investigative journalist and explains why he is "feared by the Shelby County Election Commission." What media outlet does Harvey work for? None of them. He's a...

Federal Court Grants Media Access to Bloggers, January 4, 2007
The U.S. District Court in Washington, DC has agreed to provide the Media Bloggers Association with press credentials for two seats at the upcoming Scooter Libby trial. This is a big deal in the development of blog-based independent journalism. MBA...

Bloggers Getting Jobs, January 3, 2007
Blogger Jon Henke of the popular libertarian-leaning QandO blog, has been hired as New Media Director for the Republican Communication Office in the Senate. Meanwhile, Tennessee blogger Kara Watkins has been named the new Press Secretary for the Tennessee House...

Movin' On Up, January 3, 2007
New York Daily News journalist and blogger Ben Smith, who yesterday broke the news of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani's leaked presidential campaign strategy book, announced today he is leaving the Daily News to write for The Politico, a...

Flickring Hopes, January 2, 2007
NashvilleIsTalking.com's Brittney Gilbert thought this photograph was a nice photo, so she included it in this blog post with a list of links to nice pictures posted publicly on Flickr.com that had some connection to Nashville. The photographer who took...

The AP's Festering Credibility Problem, January 2, 2007
If an Iraqi police captain by the name of Jamil Hussein exists, there is no convincing evidence of it - and that means the Associated Press has a journalistic scandal on its hands that will fester until the AP deals...

Pro-Civil Rights Blogger Fired, January 2, 2007
Say Uncle links to the ongoing saga of a federal employee fired because he had a pro-civil rights blog. The civil right he defends on his blog: the right to keep and bear arms. I'm not surprised. The First Amendment...

No Wonder Their Circulation is Plummeting, January 2, 2007
A district attorney prosecutes the Los Angeles Times and finds it guilty of serial deception, arrogance and more. A long and delicious read....

Bumper Sticker Politics, January 1, 2007
The Federal Election Commission deals another blow to the First Amendment....

Romney, Bloggers and the Boston Globe, December 31, 2006
The Boston Globe front-pages a story about Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's efforts to reach out to bloggers as he runs for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination. Read it here....

BlogsBlogsBlogsBlogsBlogsBlogsAndMoreBlogs, December 27, 2006
Nashville Scene writer P.J. Tobia profiles the eclectic blogging of WKRN weatherman Jeff Ray at his blog WeatherJeff.com. Meanwhile, WKRN's VolunteerVoters.com blogger A.C. Kleinheider has a round-up of the bloggage re Tobia's recent plagiarism as published on the Scene's blog....

Person of the Year: Me!, December 18, 2006
Time magazine has announced its "Person of the Year" and, incredibly, it is me. William Beutler predicted as much....

Camp Update 2, December 15, 2006
The Baptist & Reflector, the statewide newspaper of the Tennessee Baptist Convention, has published a half-apology by editor Lonnie Wilkey to Lipscomb University theology professor Dr. Lee Camp for a column Wilkey wrote last week criticiing Camp based on a...

Who Is Jamil Hussein?, December 14, 2006
I've been following, but only lightly blogging about, the controversy surrounding an Associated Press report from Iraq that increasingly appears to have been a fabrication. But now it is getting interesting......

"Authenticity is The Hallmark of Social Media", December 12, 2006
"Authenticity is the hallmark of social media, and it's difficult to be anonymous and authentic at the same time. Blogging, or even commenting, under your real name helps lend credibility to what you bring to the conversation." - Connie Reece...

Everything's Blog In Texas, December 10, 2006
Mike Chapman at Blogabilities writes about the blogosphere's impact on the legislative process.A Texas legislator has introduced a bill to extend defamation of character protections to the Internet, and I found out about it first where? The Internet.Chapman recaps how...

An Army of Seiberts, December 7, 2006
WKRN investigative reporter Trent Seibert is teaching bloggers how to do original investigative reporting. I'll let Seibert explain, and then add a few comments of my own:But, to me, there are too few bloggers doing original reporting... or even additional...

Associated With The Terrorists Press?, December 5, 2006
Mark Tapscott has a great summary of the credibility crisis engulfing the Associated Press over its alleged use of Iraqi "stringers" who may be peddling false stories on behalf of the insurgency. A la Rathergate, bloggers have played a key...

Playing Defense, December 5, 2006
Mike Chapman comments at Blogabilities about this article from Colin Delaney at ePolitics.com comparing the social media efforts of the Washington Post and the New York Times....

Online and Hyper-Local, December 5, 2006
Monday's Washington Post has a story about the Gannett newspaper chain's big experiment with a new approach to "newspaper" journalism that puts more emphasis on the Internet and local news. The Fort Meyers, Fla., News Press is ground zero for...

New Tennessee Econ Blog, December 4, 2006
Dr. Martin D. Kennedy, assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University, has started a new blog, TennEconomics.com. I look forward to reading it. If business blogging grabs your interest, be sure to check out Dr. Jeff Cornwall's The...

Sharing What They Find, December 4, 2006
Interesting findings from E-Voter Institute's 2006 Research and Findings from the Fifth Annual Survey of Political and Advocacy Communication Leaders and the First Annual Survey of Voter Expectations: Finding 1: There is an increasing awareness that web-based tools are complementary...

Running on Empty: Tennessean Gas Tax Story Rife With Misrepresentations, December 2, 2006
State Sen. Mark Norris wasn't the only person whose views on reforming the state's gas tax were grossly misrepresented by Tennessean transportation reporter Kate Howard in a story published in Thursday's edition. Comments by Drew Johnson, director of the Tennesse...

Strike Two: Tennessean Gets Gas Tax Story Wrong, December 1, 2006
It's been a bad couple of days for the credibility of The Tennessean - and also not a very good couple of days for many of Tennessee's conservative political bloggers, who blindly accepted the newspaper's account of two completely different...

Welcome to the Conversation, December 1, 2006
The Tennessean has launched two new reporter-written blogs, a traffic blog by Kate Howard and a Predators hockey blog by John Glennon. They appear to be real blogs, complete with permalinks and the ability for readers to post comments. It...

"Brief news stories can seldom do justice to substantive conversations.", November 30, 2006
The Tennessean newspaper appears to be getting its first live demonstration in how the Internet has empowered its audience and its story subjects and enabled them to undermine the paper's gatekeeper-position in determining how news events are portrayed to the...

The Ongoing Media Revolution, November 28, 2006
More people are downloading audio feeds, but few do it regularly, according to a new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Details in Business Week. The Pew study is online here. Also in media news, the Pulitzer...

The Ongoing Battle, November 27, 2006
Cappucino Soul spotlights a legal victory involving a blogger arrested by cops in Canada. Score this one for the independent journalists. ... Meanwhile, the "study committee" that the Tennessee legislature established for the purpose of delaying any meaningful reform of...

Use It Wisely, November 17, 2006
Terry Heaton may have moved to Dallas, but his Nashville connection remains strong. Read today's post, The Blogosphere Belongs to the Blogosphere. Also, Heaton weighed in a few days ago on some rather misguided statements by former New York Times...

Statehouse Blogs, November 15, 2006
The National Conference of State Legislatures' website has a blog, The Thicket, described as "a bipartisan blog by and for legislative junkies, which covers developments at state legislatures around the country. The nine-month-old blog also has a good blogroll of...

A Minor Annoyance, November 14, 2006
If you blog long enough and build a large enough audience and write about controversial things I can guarantee you you'll attract trolls - opponents who aren't content to argue issues and debate ideas in their comments, but who will...

Blogs Becoming Advertising Force, November 13, 2006
This Reuters report says that, in Europe, "blogs are becoming a force to be reckoned with as a means of advertising products" according to a survey by Ipsos MORI . The Ipsos MORI poll "found that the Internet journals are...

"Political Reporters ... You Don't Control the Media Anymore", November 6, 2006
The Monday Memphis Commercial-Appeal has this story regarding political campaings and media in the era of blogs and YouTube, complete with a fascinating and dead-on accurate quote from Carol C. Darr, director of the George Washington University Institute for Politics,...

Gannett Papers To Try Networked Grassroots Journalism, November 6, 2006
Wired has an amazing story about a paradigm shift at some Gannett newspapers in the way they gather news. It's called crowdsourcing, and it is a journalistic change for the better. The initiative is designed to "put readers to work...

If A Tree Falls In A Forest..., October 31, 2006
The Tennessean has a political blog. It's a week before election day, and I didn't know that until today, which tells you The Tennessean needs to learn a lot more about how to market a blog....

The 24-Minute News Cycle, October 29, 2006
The Sunday Tennessean has a good story on how cheap digital communications tools are changing the rules of the campaign game......

Fighting Media Misinformation, October 29, 2006
The U.S. Department of Defense is using the Internet to make public its requested media corrections and any refusals to correct, reports StrategyPage.com. The goal: pressure the news media to make corrections when it gets things wrong. Of course, it...

Thbbbt!, October 27, 2006
WKRN political blogger A.C. Kleinheider, whom I usually refer to as ACK, relates a heart-to-heart conversation involving a couple of journalists. Read the whole thing. Excerpt:I explained to The Journalist that the call letters I stated at the beginning of...

The Real War, October 25, 2006
Don't miss Michael Fumento's excellent National Review article on media coverage of the Iraq war, and how it is being skewed by a brigade of "reporters" trying to do the impossible: accurately report a war in a country the size...

The Rise of the Blogs, October 24, 2006
Rob Huddleston:"The national media's inadequacy has been magnified by the rise of the blogs, for sure. That's why they interview bloggers, as a way of catching up on what has been going on in each race.He's right....

Killing the Milblogs, October 22, 2006
Boston Herald City Editor Jules Crittenden says the military's new regulations on soldiers' blogging may kill off milblogs. I fear he's right....

Bill Moyers Threatens to Sue a Blogger, October 20, 2006
Left-wing PBS journalist Bill Moyers is threatening to sue a blogger, claiming defamation because the blogger reprinted a statement first published by one of Moyers' interview subjects, who claims Moyers said something that Moyers says he never said. The Moyers...

Federal Court Ruling Called "Victory for Bloggers", October 19, 2006
Michael Silence calls it "a victory for bloggers," and I have to agree:Judge: Libel limit applies to Web DALLAS - A one-year statute of limitations for bringing libel lawsuits in Texas also applies to articles posted on the Internet, a...

Help Me Help Them, October 17, 2006
I am being interviewed tomorrow for a political magazine doing a story on bloggers covering their state legislatures. The central theme of the story is an exploration of whether bloggers should be given official legislative press credentials. I have my...

Sun CEO Seeks Permission to Issue Earnings Reports Via His Blog, October 10, 2006
Jonathan Schwartz, Chief Executive Officer, Sun Microystems, Inc., is asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to allow public companies to satisfy their "Regulation FD" requirments for fair disclosure of earnings reports and other such information. Schwartz writes,A regulation known as...

Birdie, October 9, 2006
BloggingThemes.com offers free downloadable designs for blogs built with WordPress. This one reminds me of a blog that I once designed......

Let's Give Them Something To Talk About, October 3, 2006
Online Media Daily reports on a survey commissioned by Lexis Nexis that found consumers are more likely to turn to the mainstream media when they want information about urgent matters than to blogs, podcasts or Web-only publications. But will newspapers...

Travel Blogs Enter the Mainstream, September 25, 2006
TravelWeekly.com reports that, "Travel suppliers, destinations and their marketing and public relations professionals are realizing that they have to deal with bloggers, those edgy, irreverent, sometimes dazzling, sometimes off-base voices on the Web."...

Your Tax Dollars at Work - But You Can't See the Results!, September 22, 2006
Did you know that the Congressional Research Service spends more than $100 million of your tax dollars annually producing policy research reports for Congress, but that you aren't automatically entitled to see their work? OpenCRS.com, a project of the Center...

Quoted, September 20, 2006
Michael Silence has an interesting story in the Wednesday Knoxville News Sentinel regarding Mayfield Dairy's new Dairy Blog. I'm quoted, along with bloggers Glenn Reynolds and Bob Cox of the Media Bloggers Association. Readers of the paper's story should know...

"The Best Test of Truth", September 19, 2006
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has published an Op-Ed by Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, titled "The best test of truth," as part of a series in honor of Constitution Day. The opinion editor at the paper asked...

USAToday.com overhauls travel section with "greater emphasis on consumer input", September 18, 2006
USAToday.com has relaunched its travel section today. Online Media Daily reports the redesigned site "will place greater emphasis on consumer input, travel tools, and blogs."...

Good Advice, September 14, 2006
John Kroll, deputy business editor for the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, has some good advice for newspaper business editors considering adding blogs to their online business section. Basically it boils down to: Have a purpose and a plan, but not grandiose expectations....

Info Dump, September 13, 2006
Want to see the future of professional journalism? Check out this post from WKRN's former newspaper reporter turned broadcasting-and-blogging investigative TV reporter Trent Seibert......

Transparent Bias, September 3, 2006
The editorial page of the The Tennessean Sunday offers up an apparently transparent example of the paper's liberal bias, via this editorial about the effort - lead by independent bloggers, not by newspapers such as The Tennessean - to identify...

Coming Soon: Robots That Blog, August 31, 2006
I don't have an Xbox 360 and don't want one. And if I did want one, I wouldn't want it to blog....

The Future of Traditional News In a Craigslist Media World, August 29, 2006
Robert Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association, has an excellent column at the Washington Examiner's website asking, "Can traditional news organizations cope with a Craigslist media world?" The answer: Only by adopting "Craigslist media world" strategies....

Blogging for Dollars, August 25, 2006
The cover story of the new issue of Business 20 is headlined "Blogging For Dollars, and if you're a blogger it'll have you trying to come up with the next profitable blog idea. You can read the story online here....

Bucks and Buzz, August 25, 2006
National Journal's "Beltway Blogroll" looks at the political value of advertising on blogs and concludes that Blog Ads Help Challengers Generate Bucks And Buzz....

The Ninth Planet, August 25, 2006
According to the International Astronomical Union, Pluto is not a planet, based on the IAU's new definition of a planet:A planet is a celestial body that is in orbit around the Sun has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome...

Wanted: Friendly Blogger, August 23, 2006
Burned by bloggers, Sen. George Allen, R-Va., is looking for a conservative blogger to help his presidential campaign. I suggest he start with the list of conservative bloggers being compiled over at RedState.com....

Some Things Need Changing, August 21, 2006
Danny Glover, who writes the National Journal's excellent Beltway Blogroll blog roundup, notes my battle to get the National Conference of State Legislatures to grant me a press pass to cover a session on legislative blogging, and recounts his own...

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join Em, August 21, 2006
The Washington Post has formed a "blog network" designed to boost lesser-known blogs - and also to carry WaPo ads. Details here from Online Media Daily. If you're a blogger, you can submit your blog for review and a possible...

NCSL Roundup, August 18, 2006
Welcome, hordes of Instapundit readers! Here are links to all my blog posts regarding the National Conference of State Legislatures' annual meeting, which has drawn some 6,000 people, including 1,000 legislators, 2,000 lobbyists and 3,000 staffers and other hangers-on, to...

Sizzle, August 18, 2006
NASHVILLE - At the National Conference of State Legislatures annual meeting this week at Nashville's Opryland Hotel, some media cover the sizzle, and some cover the steak....

Live-Blogging From the NCSL, August 17, 2006
NASHVILLE - I'm writing this from the National Conference of State Legislatures' session on E-Legislatures: Technology and the Policymaking Process, exploring the role blogs and other Internet technologies have in the policymaking process, and I'm sad to report that it...

NCSL Agrees To Let Blogger Cover Session on Blogs, August 16, 2006
NASHVILLE - The National Conference of State Legislatures convention meeting in Nashville this week will explore the role blogs and other Internet technologies have in the policymaking process in a session, E-Legislatures: Technology and the Policymaking Process, Thursday morning. And...

Blogger Survey, August 15, 2006
If you're a blogger, take the Pew Internet & American Life Project's Blogger Survey. I did....

Exposing Earmarks, August 15, 2006
The Washington Examiner is inviting readers and bloggers "to help uncover which members of Congress sponsored the 1,867 secret spending earmarks worth more than $500 million in the Labor-Health and Human Services appropriation bill now before Congress."These earmarks average more...

The Most Influential Political Blogger in Tennessee, August 15, 2006
Knoxville News Sentinel reporter/blogger Michael Silence is trying to identify the five most influential political bloggers in Tennessee. (Hat tip: ACK, who has his list here.) Me? I think it's a fool's errand. Influential political blogger? The category is too...

Blogs Impact the Election, August 4, 2006
Adam Groves looks at the role blogs played in the campaign:Tennessee Politics Blog Analysis -- 2006: The Election of the Blog -- Bloggers were incredibly successful in their primary bids this election season. The state's only blogging State Legislator Stacey...

Why He Blogs, August 4, 2006
Entrepreneurship professor Jeff Cornwall read a USA Today story on entrepreneurship and found it lacking. Says Cornwall, "I guess that is why I keep blogging."...

Critiquing the Media, August 3, 2006
Bloggers Charles Badger and Terry Frank both are taking the Tennessee news media to task for failing to adequately cover the election campaign....

Leftist Blogger Jailed For Refusing to Provide Video to Grand Jury, August 2, 2006
The New York Times is up with a story, Blogger Jailed After Defying Court Orders, about a videoblogger who is facing jail time "after refusing to turn over video he took at an anticapitalist protest [in San Francisco] last summer...

Business Blogging, August 2, 2006
London Times: Bloggers put the boot into big business.Many companies are still terrified by the idea of blogging. The interactive nature of blogs means customers can say what they want about a company and ask awkward questions. Companies also fear...

Marketing the Ivory Tower Via Blogs, July 25, 2006
Blogging economics professor Brad DeLong says universities ought to encourage professors to blog as a way of "turbocharging the public sphere of information and debate that is a principal reason that governments finance and donors give to universities" - and...

Blogging the Israel-Hezbollah War, July 24, 2006
Blogs of Web-savvy youths record suffering on both sides in Middle East - International Herald Tribune...

Public Relations Reaches the Blogosphere, July 24, 2006
The New York Sun takes a look at the work that Edelman Public Relations is doing in the blogosphere.Known as "emerging media," blogs began as diary entries by individuals to be read, and replied to, solely by friends. Because they...

"Your Classroom is Anywhere You Blog, July 20, 2006
An ad seen today on Technorati: It links to this....

Study Finds the Obvious Is True, July 20, 2006
A new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that bloggers tend to read online news accounts, join listservs, and scour other blogs at rates that far surpass their non-blogging counterparts, reports Online Media Daily."Bloggers are avid...

Credit Where Credit is Due, July 20, 2006
A Nashville blogger nailed the campaign manager for the Bob Clement for Mayor campaign for setting up several political action committees to allow individual donors to give more to the Clement campaign than allowed to individually by law. The Nashville...

The Red Paper Clip Story, July 17, 2006
I saw this story on 20/20 the other night: Trading up: Blogger turns red paper clip into free house. Fascinating. Here's the blog....

Puff Piece, July 12, 2006
It is unfortunate that incumbency is so powerful in Tennessee that there is only one state senate election - in the 21st District, which includes parts of Nashville - where there both primaries are contested. It is even more unfortunate...

Ford's Radio Lies: Update, July 11, 2006
Stacey Campfield reported Monday on the fallout from the lie U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. told on a recent Knoxville radio program:On The Voice radio show [Monday] a huge chunk of the show was spent talking about the Ford interview...

Blogging for Jesus, July 10, 2006
The WaPo has a story about cyber-savvy pastors becoming bloggers......

WKRN To Accept Bloggers' Video Stories For Air, July 7, 2006
Big news from WKRN today. I'll let Rex Hammock explain:Michael Sechrist, general manager of Nashville's blog-friendly ABC affiliate, WKRN, announced that the station is starting an initiative to encourage bloggers to submit edited news or feature stories to the station,...

Kentucky Blog Ban Update, July 5, 2006
The Christian Science Monitor updates the latest in the Kentucky state government's attempt to keep state employees from reading (some) blogs.Central to the constitutional case - which Nickolas says he may challenge in court - is the question of whether...

Military to Study Blogs, July 1, 2006
This report says the Air Force Office of Scientific Research recently began funding a new research area that includes a study of blogs. And the researchers think bloggers may have fueled those riots in the Muslim world over the publication...

The Handwriting Is On the Blog, June 30, 2006
Jason Mohr writes for the Helena, Montana, Independent Record, and also writes for the paper's Town Blog. Or did. He's leaving the paper, and ending the blog. His final blog entry made me chuckle:When you see your job advertised in...

The Platform Doesn't Matter (Yes It Does), June 27, 2006
A quote in today's Tennessean from Tennessean President and Publisher Ellen Leifeld got me thinking about something I wrote here at BillHobbs.com a few weeks ago:The reality of the news business in the modern era is that, via blogs and...

Flying Blind, June 24, 2006
The Saturday Tennessean reports that there is some sort of deal in the works that could eventually repeal something called the "Wright Amendment," which, reporter Bush Bernard says, has prevented Southwest Airlines from flying directly from Nashville to Dallas' Love...

Blogalism Update, June 21, 2006
The Kentucky state government is censoring which blogs state employees can read on their office computers. ... Meanwhile, the blogs continue to hammer Jason "The Liar" Leopold and TruthNot.org contortionist editor Marc Ash over their continued insistence that Karl Rove...

Political Payola, June 20, 2006
Did "Kos" and his partner Jerome Armstrong shill for candidates who were secretly paying Armstrong thousands of dollars? It sure looks that way. And while it's not illegal, it's incredibly dishonest. And stupid - because whatever they gained monetarily pales...

Cobb Salad Days, June 20, 2006
Don't look now, but Sharon Cobb has dipped her toe back into the blogosphere....

The Saudi Blogging Revolution, June 19, 2006
The Christian Science Monitor has a story on the rising number of Saudi women bloggers......

Blogging Baptists Update, June 14, 2006
The Wednesday Tennessean notes the role of blogs in electing the next president of the Southern Baptist Convention......

Blogging Baptists, June 13, 2006
Among the coverage of the Southern Baptist Convention in Tuesday's Tennessean, this sidebar: Blogs bring Baptists' conflicts to the fore As the Southern Baptist Convention convenes today, it will grapple with conflicts over doctrine and management - many of which...

Too many questions., June 5, 2006
Are political blogs the new Iowa caucus? David D. Perlmutter, a senior fellow at Louisiana State University's Reilly Center for Media & Public Affairs and an associate professor of mass communication on the Baton Rouge campus, explores that question in...

The Emergent Church and Blogs, June 2, 2006
Ed Dodds forwarded me the text of a fascinating article in the Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, on the "Emergent Church" movement, titled "Postmodern Christianity: Emergent Church and Blogs."Early in the 21st century it is apparent to us that...

Embrace The Blogs, June 2, 2006
Bill Colrus has a very nice piece on "citizen journalism" in the current edition of the Chattanooga Pulse, which you can read online here. And I don't just say that because I'm quoted. It's a long article - here's a...

Getting It, May 31, 2006
WKRN's Brittney Gilbert sez... "The Tennessean doesn't know a blog from a hole in the ground." That's partly true. Some of their reporters know blogs very well, and read them, and even get story ideas from them. But "The Tennessean"...

Class Act, May 31, 2006
Not long after WKRN General Manager Mike Sechrist announced on his blog a reshuffling of anchors at Nashville's third-place news channel, commenters on his blog started blasting the changes, often with juvenile or rude language, and often anonymously. One common...

Politician Launches Fresh Attack on Blogs, May 26, 2006
U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, is an enemy of free speech. Allen is launching a new attack on political bloggers with the renewed threat of regulation under the Stifle Free Speech Act Campaign Finance Reform act even after the Federal...

AP Gets Blog-Friendly, May 25, 2006
The Associated Press has done a deal with Technorati, the blog-search service. AP stories that appear on the websites of the 440 AP members that subscribe to the AP's Hosted Custom News Web product will show a module featuring the...

Kay Brooks Update, May 19, 2006
NashvilleIsTalking.com has a pretty good round-up on the Kay Brooks story, including links to various blogs and the news articles in The Tennessean and the Nashville City Paper. It's not central to the debate, but I've noticed something a bit...

Blogs as PR Tools, May 18, 2006
I'll be speaking this afternoon at the Tennessee College Public Relations Association Spring Conference, hosted by Volunteer State Community College, on a panel discussion on "Higher Ed Blogs, Podcasting, RSS and Web Video." I'll be discussing how blogs can be...

Announcing..., May 18, 2006
Announcing... Mesh Media Strategies and the forthcoming Mesh Media Strategies blog....

Kay Brooks Update, May 18, 2006
The Tennessean covers the "controversy" over the selection of home-schooling mom Kay Brooks to fill a seat on the Nashville school board left vacant by a resignation. The controversy is this: the public school education establishment wanted someone from within...

Blogging Home-Schooler Mom Elected to Nashville School Board, May 17, 2006
Congratulations to Kay Brooks are in order. And the Metro public school system will be better for her being on the school board. One commenter on the Nashville City Paper website wrote, "People who send their kids to private schools...

Blogback Mountain, May 17, 2006
Interesting column from Nashville City Paper editor Clint Brewer on the role blogs are playing in the U.S. Senate race in Tennessee, focusing on two Brokeback Mountain parodies making the rounds in the Tennessee political blogosphere. For my money, none...

Weathering the Social-Media Storm, May 11, 2006
"Getting egged by bloggers is an inevitability for every company," writes Max Kalehoff at the Online Spin blog at MediaPost.com. Kalehoff's piece examines the "social-media storm" that erupted surrounding Warren Kremer Paino Advertising's attempt to intimidate a critical blogger, Lance...

... That's Why Citizen Journalism is Flourishing, May 11, 2006
Rocky Mountain News editor and blogger John Temple writes on the rise of citizen journalism:Normal people today have tools that journalists would have died for only a few years ago. They're widely available. And they're cheap. So people play with...

Just Folks Talkin', May 10, 2006
Jeff Jarvis says there's no such thing as the blogosphere. It's just people talking, he says. And, um, he's right. What the mass media treats as a single giant entity is in fact nothing more than a conversation. Well, a...

Post-Mortem, May 6, 2006
AdAge.com has a good post-mortem on the Lance Dutson case now that the New York ad agency Warren Kremer Paino Advertising has dropped its lawsuit that was intended to intimidate a Maine blogger into silence who had been critical of...

Unconditional Surrender by NY Ad Agency in Maine Blogger Case, May 5, 2006
The Media Bloggers Association is reporting that, in the last hour, lawyers for the advertising agency suing MBA member Lance Dutson filed a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal in U.S. District Court in Maine....

Lance Dutson Update, May 5, 2006
Editor's Note: This post has been superceded by a major development today, a complete retreat by Warren Kremer Paino, the New York City ad agency that was trying to intimidate a Maine blogger into silence by hitting him with a...

Luv Ya Blog, May 3, 2006
My favorite airline has started a blog. And it's a real blog - they're accepting reader comments and will even be soliciting reader photos via a connected Flickr site. The blog's "User Guide" makes it very clear that the people...

Silence!, May 3, 2006
Glenn Reynolds uses his TCS column to warn of the dangers of smacking a hornet's nest with a stick. In a related story, AdAge.com describes the Dutson case mentioned by Reynolds as a case of an advertising agency blowing a...

Volunteer to Read, May 1, 2006
VolunteerVoters.com, the new political blog owned by WKRN Channel 2 in Nashville and written by A.C. Kleinheider, deserves a lot more readers than it is currently getting. Just thought I'd mention that. Now, go read it. Also, Adam Groves' Tennessee...

Free Stuff!, May 1, 2006
NashvillePost.com is making its archives accessible without a subscription, part of its very fine blog-like redesign that has RSS feeds and even allows for reader comments. [Hat tip: Terry Frank] NashvillePost.com is owned by the publisher of Business Tennessee magazine,...

Blog Britannia, April 28, 2006
Here's an interesting report from London from Reuters:Citizen journalism climbing up the media ladder Videos shot in smoke-filled, bombed-out London underground trains, photos of body-strewn roads -- the July 7 bombings on London's transport system brought the arrival of a...

Lance Dutson Update, April 28, 2006
Ed Cone has more on Lance Dutson, the Maine blogger who is being sued by an ad agency, with several good links. A few days ago, almost no one had ever heard of "Warren Kremer Paino Advertising." Now, they're known...

Life Goes On, April 28, 2006
I'll be speaking as part of a panel discussion at the Tennessee College Public Relations Association Spring Conference in mid-May on the topic of Blogs, Podcasting, RSS and Web Video in Higher Education PR. Also on the panel: Melanie Moran,...

Citizen Journalist Hit With Lawsuit, April 27, 2006
An advertising firm that works for Maine's Office of Tourism is suing a blogger, Lance Dutson, over journalism published at the Dutson's website, Maine Web Report. The Media Bloggers Association, of which I am a board member, is fighting back....

Open Records Reform in Tennessee, April 23, 2006
Christian Grantham sent an email about some legislation I thought you should know about that's on tomorrow's Tennessee Senate calendar. The legislation, the "Sunshine In Government Improvement Act of 2006" (SB2471 / HB2495, affects access to public records by Tennessee...

Q&A, April 22, 2006
Q: What is "citizen journalism"? A: Here's a fine example of citizen journalism from Blake Wylie....

Apple v. Bloggers Update, April 22, 2006
In a case with big implications for the rights of citizen journalists, the State of California Court of Appeal "gave Apple Computer's attorney a particularly hard day in court yesterday" over its attempt to force the Internet service provider of...

The Future, April 21, 2006
This is interesting - a blogger's readers pay in advance so he can go research and write a feature story about the Trinity atomic bomb test site. [Hat tip to the Nashville City Paper's blog.] I have said before that...

Ch...Ch...Changes, April 20, 2006
More than a year ago, I created a website, VolPols.com, to offer every member of the Tennessee legislature a free, supported, fully-functional blog site, and the requisite training to go with it. Although I made the offer repeatedly to all...

It's a Conversation, January 10, 2006
I've been so busy lately, that I didn't notice until today that the Nashville City Paper has added a blog to its online offerings. The blog is set up to feature postings by various City Paper writers, and does accept...

Cookie Cutter, January 9, 2006
Kentucky blogger extraordinaire Doug Petch writes: "In order to be successful, citizens media must be built from the ground up by those who would benefit from its existence." Well, yeah. Read the whole thing. Nashville is involved....

Blowing It, January 8, 2006
Glenn Reynolds has an interesting post, with multiple links, on how the military is blowing it with bloggers. Also, here's a related development....

Just Do It, January 5, 2006
Here's more on the refusal of Kentucky legislative officials to grant media credentials to bloggers from Caleb O. Brown of KentuckyVotes.org, who http://www.bipps.org/blog/archives/2006/01/cheap_seats.html">writes:Kentucky's Legislative Research Commission has denied bloggers press credentials for the upcoming legislative session. I also applied for...

Laws, Sausage and Blogs, January 4, 2006
This post at NationalJournal.com's Beltway Blog, reporting that the Kentucky legislative officials are refusing to grant media credentials to the state's political bloggers, reminds me of a project I have in mind for Tennessee political bloggers during the legislative session....

Fairness Update, December 27, 2005
I have updated this post by publishing a series of emails exchanged between myself and Nashville is Talking blogger Brittney Gilbert regarding the issue of whether blogs published by the mainstream media have an obligation to be fair....

Should MSM Bloggers Be Fair?, December 22, 2005
Interesting debate underway over at Nashville Is Talking, here, on whether a salaried blogger working for a news organization has an obligation to at least try to appear fair - and what they're risking if they don't. UPDATE: The NIT...

Wikipedia and the Army of Fact-Checkers, December 14, 2005
The Tennessean weighs in on the Wikipedia story, warning that websites "that don't monitor accuracy are begging for government regulation." The paper thinks online information sites should "hire an army of fact-checkers." The Wikipedia story interests me for how it...

Clueless in Tennessee, December 13, 2005
The Tennessee Press Association - the trade association for Tennessee newspapers - has scheduled a session on blogs as part of its annual meeting coming up in Nashville in mid-February. The Press Institute and Winter Convention, sponsored by the TPA...

"The gate keeper function is dead", December 10, 2005
Terry Heaton has ten very good suggestions for journalism school deans. I especially agree with 1-4 and number 8....

Something's Missing, December 8, 2005
Something is missing from this job posting: evidence that the station has gotten a clue about blogs....

War on Error Bias, December 1, 2005
This post has been linked by Instapundit, Hugh Hewitt, the National Journal's Blogometer, Reason.com, Protein Wisdom, the Knoxville News Sentinel's Michael Silence, the New England Republican, and several other blogs since yesterday. So... if you haven't read it, well, why...

Much Thanks, November 19, 2005
By Nathan Moore It was fun blogging over here on Bill's site for a few days, celebrating conservatism, freedom and capitalism for the virtues they are. I hope I and my cohorts were able to do justice to the discourse...

Adventures in Babysitting, November 18, 2005
By Donna Locke Tennesseans for Immigration Control and Reform I have to say that, with the exception of the little incident yesterday, this is the best-behaved blog I've ever baby-sat. It did not run out into the street a single...

Adventures in Babysitting, November 18, 2005
By Donna Locke Tennesseans for Immigration Control and Reform I have to say that, with the exception of the little incident yesterday, this is the best-behaved blog I've ever baby-sat. It did not run out into the street a single...

The WebBLOG Blues, November 14, 2005
Much as I like a lot of what The Tennessean has been doing lately - namely, great and unbiased coverage of state government and the legislature - and much as I thoroughly enjoyed meeting the paper's new editor, E.J. Mitchell,...

Back From Iraq, Lance Seeks 278th Stories, Photos, November 10, 2005
Lance Frizzell is back from Iraq and changing the focus of his blog. Lance writes:Now that most of the 278th RCT is back from Iraq, I plan to alter this blog into a growing archive of our deployment and back...

The Thought Police, October 31, 2005
UPDATE: Bob Krumm has a follow-up post to this that it is vital you read. After you have read the post below, scroll back up here and click here. State Rep. Chris Clem emails:I posted a response to an article...

Blogger Job, October 15, 2005
Here's a job listing for a blogging PR job in Nashville. Downside: You can make more at McDonalds....

Defending An Inconvenient Freedom, October 14, 2005
Bob Cauthorn over at Corante's Rebuilding Media blog, highlights a momentous decision by the Delaware Supreme Court recognizing that comments posted online have First Amendment protection.The Delaware Supreme Court yesterday delivered what one hopes is a watershed decision when it...

Bloggers Surveyed, October 12, 2005
The number one reason people begin blogging is to establish themselves as a visible authority in their field, according to a study by public relations firm Edelman. Blogger Survey 2005 lists the above reason as the mindset of 33.8 percent...

Yahoo! To Include Blogs in News Search Results, October 12, 2005
The news in this AP story might get me to switch from Google News to Yahoo! News...Yahoo Inc.'s online news search tool on Monday added Internet journal entries as a supplement to professional media offerings - an experiment that figures...

Is the First Amendment Only For a Special Elite?, October 11, 2005
Bloggers would "probably not" be considered journalists under the proposed federal shield law, the bill's co-sponsor, U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar (R.-Ind.), told the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) Monday afternoon, according to a report from Editor & Publisher. The question...

Blogging Tip, October 10, 2005
Here's a blogging tip for you bloggers out there: the newest version of the Google browser tool-bar has a spell-check feature that you can use to spell-check your blog entries before you post them. As with all things Google, It...

Blogs Help Force Ford's Flip-Flop, July 29, 2005
Mark Rose explores how the bloggers caused Harold Ford Jr. to flip-flop and reverse his initial praise of the much-hated Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London eviscerating private property rights in America. Rose:Ford was hammered by bloggers as...

"An Enduring Desire... to Be Informed", June 24, 2003
Here's an interesting job listing for "Journalism trainers, Baghdad, Iraq." It's from the London-based Institute for War & Peace Reporting.IWPR is seeking journalism trainers for work in Iraq to assist in our project to strengthen the capacity of Iraqi media...