Congress catching on to the value of blogs

I found this article through Slashdot and thought you' d like to read it.

From Slashdot:

Jason Jardine wrote to mention a C|Net report on an increase in the use of blogs by politicians in the U.S. capitol. From the article: "Just a year ago, a DailyKos posting from someone like John Kerry would have been all but unheard of, and blogging of any kind by members of Congress was almost nonexistent. But now that dynamic is starting to change, and slowly, members of the House of Representatives and the Senate are beginning to appreciate the value of blogs. 'When I reach out to the blog community, it gives me an opportunity to begin a dialogue with an extremely politically sophisticated and active community that I otherwise might not be able to reach,' Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com."

It seems that John Kerry posted to DailyKos (yes, I'm jealous), there was a bit of doubt btu it turned out to be Sen. Kerry.

From C|Net:

Obama and Kerry are two of about 11 members of Congress who are blogging today, either on their own blogs or as guests on others' sites. Republicans like Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas have joined the fray, along with Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York.

That's still a small percentage of Congress, but some observers of politics and blogs think a greater number of Washington's elected officials will soon come around.

Now these blogs do not have comments on them because of a rule restricting comments on federal websites, and sometimes they are just using them as press releases.

And to some, the lack of comments on the official blogs of those like Kirk, Hastert, Obama and others actually calls into question their use of the term "blog."

Without comments, a blog is "just a glorified press release," said Mike Cornfield, an adjunct professor in political management at George Washington University.

I'll reserve comment on that for a while. I believe a blog should be a two way communication, Poster and Commenter. But we'll see how that goes. What's to stop them from opening up a blog on Blogger or Livejournal?

And Sen. Kerry, us little blogs could use the attention too :)

The entire article can be found here:
Congress catching on to the value of blogs

The Slashdot discussion is here:
Politics: Politicians Catch on to Blogging

Technorati tags: Blog, Congress, Kerry, Obama, Kos, Politics