Blogging the "Wisconsin" Blummit 2007: Part 1.5

Before I put up my post on the panel from yesterday concerning the "digital divide" I thought I should respond to some of the very excellent points Brad brought up over at Letters in Bottles concerning my criticism of the heavy Milwaukee focus at a "Wisconsin" blummit.

I never really thought about the talker/blogger relationship because, essentially, Madison doesn't have one. Vicki McKenna used to have a weird journal type thing that she would occasionally utilize but it has since disappeared. Interestingly it disappeared shortly after our 36-hour battle with McKenna and serves as an excellent case study in how both bloggers and talkers benefit when talkers have blogs.

As you may recall, Vicki McKenna attempted to say that Dane101 wrote a childish piece of anti-conservative talk radio slander that we had found on a bathroom wall after the election. Anyone who reads Dane101 knows that we often post interesting "Found" items from around the city. When we sent a cordial email to McKenna asking that she correct the mistake on her website she refused and decided to instead go on a five minute rant on her show that afternoon. Since we had anticipated that kind of response, we recorded it, then called and asked to be able to defend ourselves. She refused to give us airtime, and then we wrote about it. Our post was soon linked to by other bloggers in Madison who pretty much were unsurprised by Vicki McKenna's modus operandi of twisting the truth.

We listened the next day and she didn't revisit the topic. It was too bad because we could have kept it going for a good week. The result would have been more blogs writing about the subject and possibly more people learning about her show (and based on the non-traffic bounce we received the day of her show, she could use it). It also provides a great opportunity to further engage the audience they already have built in and encourage more people to fire up a blog account.

Charlie Sykes in Milwaukee is the perfect example. Sykes monitors the Milwaukee blogosphere and on a regular basis a topic a blogger brings up could become a topic on his show. Lee Rayburn was starting to do this locally before Clear Channel cut his legs off. Not only did Rayburn host a blog, he would occasionally have bloggers on much in the way the Majority Report with Sam Seder would on a national level.

When a talker hosts a blog it gives them the opportunity to let listeners know what they will be talking about. In the case of McKenna, I never would have tuned in if I hadn't been tipped off by her journal that she might be talking about something Dane101 is very interested in - us. If she ranted about us without posting about it first, chances are it would have gone unnoticed.

Talkers as bloggers is a good thing for community dialogue and I highly encourage Sly, Casey Hoff, McKenna, Dick Alpert, and Mitch Henck to fire up a blog. If you need advice Dane101 would be more than willing to help you get started.