Soccer Dad

Agents of influence *UPDATED*

In preaching to the choir Bookworm Room gives voice to that question that plagues many of us (self important!?) bloggers: What difference do I make? Or more specifically:

I think that the big bloggers, whether Right (Michelle Malkin, Little Green Footballs, Power Line, American Thinker, etc.) or Left (Daily Kos, et al.) matter a great deal and have the heft to affect the political process. I’m wondering, though, about politically oriented blogs like mine, and like many of those in my blogroll. We’re blogs that probably get between 200 and 2000 hits per days, depending just how popular we are, but we’re definitely not in the big league. Instead, we’re often preaching to a core group of the choir, which is a delightful feeling, but I wonder if it matters when the rubber hits the road.

In other words, do you think that all of these little political forums affect the political process? I’d very much like your opinion on this.

As I've written before I got my start in commenting on current events writing letters to the editor. The shortcoming with writing letters to the editors is that the editors decide how often to publish your letters and what to publish of your letters. And if they do they can make mistakes that make you look foolish. (Like the time the editing changed "predicated" to "predicted." Now at least the mistakes are my own.)

Blogging allows me to comment on what I want to, when I want to (and am able) and have regular readers. I suppose that, for the most part, those readers are members of the choir, but hopefully I'm informing them of information they wouldn't read elsewhere. (In the past year, I've taken on two co-bloggers - Daled Amos and Judeopundit, because they inform me of things that I wouldn't have otherwise have caught.)

Occasionally, during blogging, I've been part of something bigger. Perhaps my biggest thrill a few years ago occurred when I sent a tip that a (now-retired) blogging friend Mystery Achievement had noted that an Italian newspaper had reported that then Iraqi PM Iyad Allawi had reported on a meeting between Osama Bin Laden deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Saddam Hussein - in 1999. I tipped off Roger L. Simon from whose blog Austin Bay picked it up. (And later do did Instapundit.)

Was it proof that Iraq and Al Qaeda were working together prior to 9/11? By itself there were reasons to doubt Allawi. Still there were other indications (as well as doubts) but perhaps more could have been developed. So it remained the province of the blogosphere, but many thousands more were exposed to this possibility. (I would think that if an Iraqi official had said unconditionally that there were no Iraqi-Al Qaeda connections prior to 9/11, regardless of his credibility, the MSM would have trumpeted that as "proof" that no such connections existed. That Allawi's statements weren't investigated further demonstrated a lack of curiosity displayed by the MSM toward stories that strayed from their accepted plot.)

More recently, I e-mailed quite a few bloggers (and others) about a Time Magazine article chronicling Israel's remarkable military victory in the 6 Day War. Not only did a number of bloggers pick it up, I was pleased to see that big blogger LGF ran with the item. Jeff Jacoby featured the Time story from 1967 in a column too. Again, through blogs, this story received significant exposure.

True I didn't need a blog to publicize either story. I might have just found the stories and e-mailed them to the critical bloggers. Then again, being a blogger, means that I'm more likely to be looking in a place where I'd find an obscure story.

It's true that the big bloggers set the agenda, but even smaller bloggers have some effect. By giving their support to the bigger bloggers they agree with, lesser bloggers can up the volume by a notch or two. (Yes the volume control might range from 0 - 1000, so a notch or two may not mean much, but if others pitch in, then the change in volume might be significant.)

So yes, bloggers, other than the super "big bloggers" are usually somewhat hamstrung when it comes to having influence. But a well placed e-mail or informative post could have a major effect on an issue or two.

Part II: There are other ways that a smaller blogger can influence or inform. Certain items a blogger posts are going to have information that people are going to come back to. A post of mine about the famous photograph of South Vietnamese General Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner is regularly found by people looking for information about that photo. I had compared the photographer's - the late Eddie Adams - concern for the consequences of the photo - reduced public support for the government of South Viet Nam with the seeming willingness of AP in our time to aid the enemy. I realize that not everyone who finds the post necessarily agrees with my comparison, but he or she will learn about the regret expressed by Eddie Adams.

And finally the most obvious way even a smaller blogger can influence the national conversation about issues is to become bigger.

I don't necessarily mean that a blogger will increase his or her traffic. I believe that a blogger reaches a plateau about 1 to 1 1/2 year of blogging and doesn't increase traffic significantly afterwards.

But blogging serves as a minor league system. Good bloggers often get noticed. That can lead to an invitation to write at a larger group blog or online periodical or even an op-ed in an old fashioned newspaper. If you're good at what you do, you're likely to get a bigger megaphone at some point.

While such promotions are not necessarily common, they do happen.

Finally, even the smallest blogger (in terms of traffic) is going to develop a neighborhood of bloggers who have similar interests and outlooks. Having a small community of like-minded blogging buddies will also raise a blog's profile.

One way or another there's usually an opportunity for even smaller bloggers to et heard.

blogging.