Why Pick On Bloggers?

McClatchy noted that a California watchdog wants bloggers to report campaign connections. Why not start with the broadcast and print media reporting their income from individual campaigns before annoying bloggers.

Bloggers with ties to individual campaigns are normally rooted out by other bloggers. A lot of blogs are obviously politically partisan, including this one, but I took the Oath of Poverty back in 2005 and can guarantee that this blog costs me money [but no where near what a boat, or even a bicycle costs.]

As for advertising, on the ‘free’ sites, the money goes to the host, not the blogger. Some bloggers do have advertising as a revenue generator, but almost all of them use one of the ad networks to deal with it, and have limited choice as to what appears in their ad spaces.

If you write something in favor of a candidate, her/his campaign might direct an ad buy on your site. If you think that it will affect someone’s opinion, you haven’t looked at the cost of ads on blogs [hint: they won’t support buying coffee at Starbucks, and maybe not at 7-11].

Some campaigns buy against type, a practice easiest seen at PZ Myer’s place with all of Christian advertising that appears. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona has been advertising on leftie blogs lately, which is another ad buy against type. I have never seen anything nice said about him at any of these sites [well, nothing that wasn’t obviously dripping with sarcasm].

Blogging by its nature is rooted in opinion, and if someone suddenly starts writing against their established pattern, people notice. If there was as much attention paid to banks as is paid to lowly bloggers, we might not be in the ‘Great Recession’.