Polis Under Construction

I’ve been blogging, off and on, for a while now.  I enjoy it a lot; it’s great to put words out there, find little pieces of information, and watch people flock to them.  There’s a reason I keep coming back.  Of course, there’s a reason I keep leaving as well.

I’ve tried several times.  Originally, I treated it as an anonymous, personal space.  I mixed anecdotes and subtle references to offline friends with generic political opinion.  It was fun, but it didn’t really keep me interested.  It takes a certain level of arrogance to think that others want to know your minutiae, and political opinion is easy to find online.

So I tried again.  I’m fascinated by politics, especially on a macro level, and the interactions it has with society.  I stripped out a lot of personal navel gazing and dug for stories that seemed to receive less attention, looking for patterns.  The series of public protests that occurred in the Ukraine, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, and Burma were remarkable to me, especially for their limited successes in Ukraine, Lebanon, Kyrgyzstan, and recently Nepal.

But massive public participations heralding a possible rejuvenation of democracy only happen so often.  If 2-3 posts are going up every day it’s too easy to devolve into the same old echo chamber much of the blogging community seems to be.  There are excellent blogs, and I enjoy reading several regularly.  But, it seems that too often a blog becomes little more than a news aggregator; collecting and distributing bits on cute animals, technology news, and (US) politics with personal opinions attached.

That, I think, is what ended my blogging in the past.  We already have news aggregators, better ones than a one man blog could ever be.  And I have an inherent distrust of the packaging of opinion as a unique product.  If that is all that a blog is adding to a story it ripped from the New York Times (while criticising the media for hiding the story), I don’t see why I shouldn’t go there instead, unless the blogger adds some special experience or perspective.  If I’d rather read a primary source, how can I expect readers to come to me?

For the most part, the blogging community, though, apart from a few high profile writers, does little more than pass around stories grabbed from someone else.  There is a reason that people like Lessig, Doctorow, Mankiw, Scoble, and Drudge have the success they do.  They either have the experience to provide perspective or information that can’t easily be found elsewhere.  A blogging community that revolves around a few high profile sources does not live up to its claims that it democratizes media.  Access is certainly far better when anyone can get online and publish, but that benefit is lost if everyone is posting the same thing.

This isn’t the way it should be. Passing around information is a valuable step; it can create a more informed citizenry eager to debate issues of the day.  As someone rather fond of democracy, informed people, and good debates, I like this.  We have the capacity to do more than that, though.  The internet has already seen blogs turned into watchdogs, serving as a newspaper for towns too small to support one, as anonymous critics and reporters of corruption.  This is good.  This means there is more information, more truth in the world, the capacity for better choices and stronger control of our government.

That is what I want to see blogs become, a diverse group of people prying out information that has been hidden away, turning the work done by places like Wikileaks into stories that can travel beyond the unique group of people that pores over obscure Army manuals and bank policy statements.

So, that will be my attempt here.  I don’t expect much, honestly.  Maintaining a blog that doesn’t involve a journal of ones belly lint is difficult, especially when it’s attempting to create original content that goes beyond punditry. I have a number of things in my life that will interfere.  But I love blogging, there’s a reason I keep coming back to it. Discovering and sharing information is a fun thing to do.

With that said, here’s what I’m planning to do.  This isn’t going to be a normal blog, obviously.

Once a week or so, I’m hoping to provide an original news piece, probably dealing with politics or society, but there will be a range.  I’ll track down sources, pore through documents, and do my best to write something that piques interest.  They’ll be news stories, not blogs, and they’ll follow journalism rules.

In between, because a weekly blog is extraordinarily infrequent, I’ll scatter in stories I’ve run into on more specialized blogs and news organizations — anywhere most readers wouldn’t find it — or truly major pieces on major networks.

I’d really like to see this succeed.  Of course, I’d like the information I get from failing, as well, so there isn’t really a downside for me.

The best part of the experiment for me is this.  Blogs have always been great for their interactivity; the barriers lowered between writer and audience.  This blog is an attempt to lower them further. This is an opportunity for you to see reporting about the things you want to see, to drive the kinds of reporting that matter to you.  I’d really like to be able to tell a reporter I want stories on the political situation in Egypt, the history of drug control policy in the US, and the barriers to adoption of all-electric vehicles in the US.  I’d like to read those pieces a few days later, read in depth reporting of something that interests me and then, in the best traditions of blogging, go even deeper and read the actual sources that were used.

I’d like to, if I hear about Warren Jeff’s FLDS Church and wonder about the social impact the group has, their history, and how the church members relate themselves to the outside world, be able to find someone who studies similar groups and ask her to cover it.

Journalism, practiced in this way, is an opportunity to revitalize an institution that is in decline.   It provides content that is not aimed at the lowest denominator; rewards the readers who question, think and wonder; and encourages journalists to specialize and become experts in their area, rather than reporting on and misunderstanding areas of society in which they are inexperienced.

It’s a part of the world I’d like to one day see, and since I don’t see it anywhere else, I’m starting it here.