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For
those who follow Virginia politics, April 29, 2006,
could shape up to be a banner day. That was when
Waldo Jaquith launched Virginia Political Blogs, a
new aggregator for weblogs that focus heavily on
politics in and around the Commonwealth. This
new site lists more than 80 (and counting)
websites and features their most recent content,
covering the entire range of ideological and
political persuasions. Readers will find some very
interesting perspectives from citizens like
themselves, as well as, “institutional” blogs
run by mainstream media outlets and political
professionals.
Virginia
Political Blogs also offers Really Simply
Syndication (or RSS) “feeds” that allow
readers to receive updated content for the site in
their email inboxes. To the more tech-savvy
political junkies, this new move may
insignificant, but for both those less
technologically- inclined (this writer for one)
and those who read blogs but do not maintain their
own sites, VA Political Blogs will be a boon for
their political consumption. The site’s creator,
Waldo Jaquith, is a self-described “27 year-old
website developer who lives in Charlottesville,
VA” and does work for the Virginia Quarterly
Review. He is also a contributing editor to Campaigns
and Elections, a leading voice for political
professionals nationwide.
Waldo,
one of the longer-tenured bloggers in Virginia, is
a local Democratic activist in Charlottesville and
a graduate of the Sorensen Institute for Political
Leaders. Waldo graciously agreed to subject
himself to some questions about the site.
Q:
What motivated you to do create site website?
WJ:
I established an aggregator for Charlottesville
blogs last June, and it's been an enormous
success, in the sense that it's helped to create a
greater sense of community among Charlottesville
bloggers. I mentioned to a couple of people at the
2005 “Summit on Blogging and Democracy in the
Commonwealth,” (sponsored by the Sorensen
Institute for Political Leadership) that I should
put something like it together for Virginia
political blogs. The fact that I finally got off
my duff and did it is attributable primarily to
self-imposed guilt for not having done it eight
months later.
Q.
Does running Virginia Political Blogs require a
lot of maintenance?
WJ:
It requires no maintenance at all. All I have to
do is add new blogs as they appear, or remove old
ones as they disappear. Other than that, it's
totally automatic.
Q:
How do you think having an aggregator just for
political blogs will impact the growth and
maturity of Virginia’s political blogosphere?
WJ:
It's my hope that it will provide one-stop
shopping for people who want to read Virginia
political blogs, but don't know where to start.
Some of the best Virginia political blogs are also
among the least read. I also hope that bloggers
and journalists will be able to use it to get the
pulse of the blogosphere. I hope that all of this
will add up to more readers and the cream rising
to the top.
Q:
How does this effort compare to those in other
states?
WJ:
I don't know -- if there are any other state-based
political blog aggregators, I've never heard of
them. The Virginia political blogosphere really is
a one of a kind.
Q:
Do you think that blogging - on balance - will
have a positive or negative impact on mainstream
media political news-reporting and opinion-making?
WJ:
It's very much my hope and my goal that blogging
will have a positive impact on journalism, but I'm
so caught up in that desire that I feel
ill-equipped to make any forecasts; desire
overwhelms judgment.
Thanks,
Waldo.
--
May 1, 2006
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