Daily Davenport Politics blog gets write up in Dispatch/Argus

Congratulations to "Fly-on-the-Wall" and "QuadCityImages", both frequent posters here, as well as Brian Krans, a Dispatch/Argus writer, for a well-done piece appearing in that paper.

"Fly" is the creator of "Daily Davenport Politics", a very well done blog covering politics and issues in Davenport and the Iowa side of the ditch. "Quad City Images" is a frequent contributor to the blog and along with "Colonel Davenport", the three of them have formed a sort of team blog with excellent results.

As I posted previously, "Daily Davenport Politics" gained notoriety after being banned from Davenport city computers, and there has been some heated debate on the blog recently. It also examines the recent decision to no longer allow comments at their blog, at least for now, due to having to deal with the kind of tripe which I've had to deal with before deciding to drop unregistered comments.

Trying to manage the beast known as anonymous comments is one of the biggest issues which bloggers have to wrestle with. Unfortunately, it appears that at least in this area, people simply can't handle being given the opportunity to post anonymously, and take it as an invitation to display their mindless drivel and invective.

The article details the blog's effect on politics on the Iowa side of the river and includes a lot of straight quotes. The piece is well done and avoids making any editorial judgments.

A free-lance writer contacted The Dope not long ago. He was going to do a piece on local blogs for a local publication, but unfortunately only contacted me a couple days before his deadline and I wasn't able to reply in time to contribute to the piece. But it resulted in my exchanging further e-mails with him in which I expressed my views and observations on running a blog in the area. He then expressed a desire to do a fuller piece focusing more specifically on myself and this blog.

Unfortunately, this writer was more intent on finding out my identity and making negative judgments about my anonymity than playing it straight and actually reporting on the blog.

Having had a few ugly experiences with the press in the past, I responded on the condition that nothing was to be published without my prior approval. He was kind enough to send me a draft of the piece, and, not surprisingly, there were a few things that I couldn't allow to be published. I made some friendly suggestions for changes and sent it back.

I explained my objection to what I believed to be his unfair judgment of anonymous bloggers, myself specifically, when he made the implication that anyone running a blog anonymously must be cowardly. The only evidence he cited to back this up was stating that "Most national bloggers I talk with" felt it was better to put your name out there. (Ironically, these "national bloggers" he spoke to remained unnamed in the piece, thus anonymous.) And he went so far as to paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

As he wrote in his concluding paragraph, "Whoever he or she may be, the Dope fears that the possible personal attacks associated with an outing may change the tenor of the blog, and fear too often trumps courage. Most national bloggers I talk with say otherwise. Eventually, they say, someone discovers who they are. There may be a short bit of fury, but the courageous keep with it, because the ideas are more important than the person who writes them. To paraphrase Dr. King, "They are ultimately judged by the content of their weblog and not by the identity of the author."

A bit too lofty for what I do here. HA! I had no idea I was doing something as profound as all that. "Eventually, they say, someone discovers who they are...", he writes. Hmmmmm. Maybe like people that actually take the time and effort to try to expose someone against their wishes, such as the himself?

And I'm not sure being "courageous" has anything to do with it. As far as whether my "... ideas are more important than the person who writes them," I'd beg to differ. I'm not sure what my ideas are worth. That's pretty much up to the people who read them.

I certainly don't think they're as important or "revolutionary" as those put forward in the Federalist Papers, that oft cited early "blog" about the future of democracy in America, which, by the way, was written by a group of anonymous writers widely accepted now as being some of our most prominent founding fathers.

But I wouldn't go so far as to say my ideas are more important than my being able to avoid any possible static in my life away from the blog because of them. You simply can not write about politics without pissing somebody off. It's impossible. And until someone's willing to pay me enough to make it worthwhile, I think I'll retain my privacy. Thanks anyway.

My "ideas" as it were, are all here for anyone to see. I'm not hiding from them, as there's more than enough opportunity here to respond to anything I write and to call me to account for anything a reader might object to. Hell, I encourage it. I don't think that could fairly be called cowardice.

I pointed out to the author that in citing these supposed national bloggers he talks with, he was comparing two wildly different situations. If you're doing a blog that's national in scope, even if you do put your name out there, for all intents and purposes you're anonymous anyway. And what are the chances of some national figure coming down on you for negative opinions or stories? Zero. What are the chances that you'll have to socialize with the national figures you cover? Zero. What are the chances that they'll shun you or otherwise try to exact revenge? Zero.

But of course, in a small pond like this, that is exactly the case, which apparently this writer didn't quite grasp. I have no idea if this writer has any particular political convictions or opinions. I imagine he may. But I'm not aware of him publishing anything of that nature. But if he does have his own political opinions, apparently he has thought better of publishing them. One might wonder why he doesn't just let it all hang and take the lumps from those who may disagree with him. After all, he believes his ideas should be more important than himself.

When I reminded him that I'd specified that nothing be published without my approval and said further changes would have to be made before giving it, he rather petulantly decided to drop the piece entirely. I sent a friendly reply expressing regret that he was giving up on it, and told him that with a few changes, the piece was fine, but that ended up being a moot point as I never got the courtesy of a reply and haven't heard from him since. But at least he was honorable enough not to turn around and burn me.

I'm pleased to see a straight, non-opinionated, informative and well reported story about local bloggers. No judgment passed on the anonymity of the bloggers, no attempt to ferret out the identity of people and violate their privacy against their wishes. As a matter of fact, the Dispatch writer never even questions the blogger's anonymity, while the writer I dealt with had gone to the lengths of compiling a list of "likely suspects" who he felt I may be and was systematically calling each of them to ask them point blank whether they ran this blog. (What other means did he employ to try to find my identity?)

So a big tip of the hat to "Fly-on-the-Wall" as well as "Quad City Images" and "Colonel Davenport", and to Dispatch writer Brian Krans for providing insight into the local blogosphere.

My favorite bit from the piece:

[The blog] ... has a few simple rules: Be civil, no vulgarity and, most importantly, "the Fly is king" -- at least at the blog.

Well said!

Read the article here.