When bloggers hook up

I need to go to work right now, so I don't have time to formulate a full post on this. Weekends are short, so I don't know how soon I'll be able to get back to it. But I wanted to point out a couple more posts in addition to the one I linked last night. (Please check that one out, as there's been a lot more discussion.)

What Edwards and the bloggers might teach us

The author said this in the comments:

kingmakers like to get paid. they may not know it when they start, but learn soon enough. witness kos' support of a dlc candidate after railing against the dlc for a year. the difference -- money.

the problem, i think, is that bloggers begin to self-censor the closer they get to the party and to candidates -- and their money. in fact, it's the same ordeal that statehouse reporters face. if they write the real story, their sources dry up. if they don't, their credibility dries up.

that's why i think the kingmaker role is antithetical to the partisan audience of most blogs.

what does work, however, is the blog as executioner meme. taking out pols that stray too far from the party line.

there's an old saying that i'm gonna mangle here, but it holds -- 99% of the evil in the world is done for a paycheck.

And another post, from Writes Like She Talks: When Bloggers hookup: getting hired, getting sponsored, getting snookered, getting lost

Hope this can spur some futher discussion. Remember Howard Dean discussing the problems with media consolidation? I *really* get wary about consolidation in the "tubes".

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