Two of Maryland’s most prominent blogs stopped publishing last week. We remember both of them today.
Free State Politics was a member of the first wave of left-wing political blogs in Maryland. Founded in March 2005 on Blogger, it was eventually taken over by contributor Isaac Smith and moved to a separate site. From the beginning, FSP was intended to be a community blog. Any reader could start an account and begin writing. If the content was really good, the blog’s moderators had the ability to promote it to the front page.
And the content was often a cut above. In addition to Isaac, the site featured MCEA Board Member Eric Luedtke, Annapolis blogger Paul Foer, Crablaw author Bruce Godfrey, the impish “Gilbert” from Takoma Park and the virulent “Lefty” from parts unknown. Through the fall of 2007, FSP was often the most-read political blog in the state. And it spawned a direct challenger: Red Maryland, a conservative multi-author blog with its own roster of dogged and occasionally deranged bloggers.
But on Wednesday, Isaac Smith posted this: I've been doing this unofficially for a while now, so I might as well make it official: I'm putting this blog on hiatus for the foreseeable future. Free State Politics has been a labor of love for me for the last year and a half or so, but it's not something I can attend to with anything near the level of commitment it deserves. It was easier when it was a side project I was doing during grad school, but trying to fit in blog posts (and good ones, at that) with my current work situation -- i.e., underemployed and trying to find a better job in the midst of a world-historical recession -- just isn't feasible anymore. I want to thank my other co-bloggers, in particular Eric, Andy, OnBackground, and Bruce, for all their contributions, which usually were better than my own. Hopefully soon I (or someone else) can give this site a reboot; until then, enjoy Maryland Politics Watch, Lost on the Shore, and other Maryland political blogs out there.
Thanks for the news, views and fun, Isaac.
PolitickerMD ceased operations last Friday. As we wrote a year ago, PolitickerMD was started in late 2007 as part of a network of state political news sites owned by New Jersey real estate millionaire Jared Kushner. These sites looked like blogs, but actually functioned more like online MSM sites complete with paid staff.
According to Politico, the Politicker network is downsizing from seventeen states to six states. One of the lost states will be Maryland. Politico reports that the dropped sites will remain online but not be updated. Kushner is even leaving open the possibility that one or more of them might be revived if justified by financial considerations.
PolitickerMD had great potential but never lived up to it. On the positive side, it was truly a statewide site. Its reporters went into every corner of Maryland and reported on events from Annapolis power struggles down to town council elections. On the negative side, its stories rarely contained any perspective. Many of them were little more than short snippets, quick quotes or links to Post or Sun articles. But they did provide fodder for commentary by others.
And so not even the blogosphere is safe from the historic dislocations in the media that we are witnessing. For-profit sites are buffeted by the same economic forces that are battering print and television journalism. Amateur sites are plagued by the demands of time, work and real life that consume the rest of us.
Goodbye, FSP and PolitickerMD. We’ll miss you. But we also eagerly look forward to the next generation of Maryland blogdom.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Fall of the Blogs
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
A Joint Statement Against Anonymous Attack Blogs
By Adam Pagnucco, Eric Luedtke and Dan Reed.
Recently, an anonymous blog appeared targeting Montgomery County Council Member Mike Knapp. The sole purpose of this blog was to attack Mr. Knapp's character in an effort to discourage him from running for County Executive. We will not do the author a favor by linking to his work. The issue for us is not Mr. Knapp or his fitness for office. Rather, the creation of this blog, which is neither the first nor the last of its kind, calls a question of vital importance to Maryland's blogosphere. And this is our response.
All of us blog under our own names. We do it because we believe what we say. We do it because we are willing to stand behind our words. And we do it because we do not fear accountability from our readers. In fact, transparency and accountability are good for the blogosphere. They are the primary tools by which our still young, and occasionally unruly, medium can be improved.
Unfortunately, our medium is subject to abuse by those who attempt to destroy the reputation of others while hiding behind a veil of anonymity. By spreading incorrect and possibly libelous information, anonymous attack bloggers do a disservice to legitimate bloggers and to the community as a whole.
While we may disagree on some matters, we agree on the fact that these anonymous attackers discredit the blogosphere and political activism as a whole. For the good of our craft, our readers and the public discourse, we the undersigned stand against them and condemn their work. Specifically, the creator of the anonymous blog attacking Mike Knapp should either have the courage to identify himself or herself or have the decency to delete the blog.
Dan Reed is the author of Just Up the Pike. Eric Luedtke is a contributor to Free State Politics. Adam Pagnucco is a contributor to Maryland Politics Watch. As measured by Sitemeter, Just Up the Pike, Free State Politics and Maryland Politics Watch are three of the five most-read blogs in the state of Maryland.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Target: Eric Luedtke
Last month, I called for the revival of the state’s liberal blogosphere. That call has been answered! And the saviors of the online left are... the online right.
As I ended my series on the state of Maryland blogdom, Isaac Smith and Eric Luedtke resumed regular posting on Free State Politics. That has attracted significant attention from Red Maryland, the nexus of the state’s conservative blogosphere. Over a nine-day period from 7/17/08 through 7/25/08, conservative bloggers criticized Luedtke by name in nine posts on five different days. Luedtke’s views on transit, education and the environment made them howl like coyotes in the hills!
These Red Maryland bloggers have probably never met Eric Luedtke. Slightly-built, Luedtke has the appearance of a first-week college freshman searching for his backpack to avoid being late for class. A soft-spoken teacher from Burtonsville, he is no proponent of the two-by-four liberalism practiced by some on this blog. The laptop-toting, coffee-sipping Luedtke is about as threatening as dew on the grass.
But Luedtke is really driving the conservatives nuts as some of their criticism is strikingly personal. In one post, Brian Griffiths accuses Luedtke of promoting “racial nonsense” and says the following on accountability in education: Luedtke, as we mentioned, is a teacher. He is a member of the teachers union. Once he reaches tenure, he is virtually unable to be fired. How's that for accountability?
This follows Griffith’s labeling of Free State Politics bloggers as “privileged Caucasians.”
All of this attention from conservatives is having an unintended consequence: they are helping to revive Free State Politics. Every time they link to one of Luedtke’s posts, they encourage their readers to visit them and pass them on. In the three weeks prior to 7/17/08, Free State Politics averaged 181 visits per day. But over the nine-day anti-Luedtke jihad, Free State averaged 268 visits per day – an increase of 48%.
On behalf of the Maryland left, I extend my sincere gratitude to Red Maryland for coming to the aid of Free State Politics. I only have one question for them: where’s the love for me?
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The State of Maryland Blogdom, Part Four
Political blogs in Maryland really began to roll in 2006, an election year. Back then, a lot of blogs sprang up to cover state and local campaigns, especially in Montgomery County. Remember MoCo Progressive, MoCo Politics, Outside the Beltway, On Background, Sprawling Towards Montgomery, Quid Pro MoCo and the notorious MoCorruption? Most were run anonymously (with Michael Raia's Outside the Beltway the exception) and all offered frequent posts with mostly liberal viewpoints. And now all of them are gone.
Then came the era of Free State Politics. Isaac Smith’s grand experiment set up a common forum in which liberal bloggers from around the state, some open and others anonymous, could post on any state or local issue they wanted. The bloggers fed off each other, shared their experiences in online diaries and elevated the quality of left-wing discourse across the state. Red Maryland, now possibly the state’s most-read political blog, was founded in July 2007 as a counterbalance to Free State Politics.
At its peak last fall, Free State Politics boasted an all-star line-up including Smith, Eric Luedtke, Andrew Kujan, Paul Foer and others, often posting multiple times per day. Free State’s coverage of the special session rivaled the mainstream media, led by Luedtke’s near-daily reporting from Annapolis. Red Maryland bloggers sometimes began their posts by denouncing one of Free State’s contributors (usually Smith or Foer) and much smack-talk was exchanged.
But Red Maryland surpassed Free State in visit count starting in October 2007 and soon had twice as many visits. Luedtke, Kujan and Foer stopped posting and left Smith to battle on alone. Free State has been resurrected in the past and may be revived again, but Red Maryland has won the lead for now.
Like the conservative blogs, the liberal blogs peaked because of the special session and the last general session. MPW, Free State, Bruce Godfrey’s venerable Crablaw and the now-dead MoCo Politics together recorded 8,000-11,000 monthly visits between July and November 2007. Combined visit counts spiked to 21,894 in February before falling to 12,124 last month. That fall is mostly due to Free State’s 66% decline in visits – from 8,892 in February to 3,013 in May. MPW, with 7,320 visits last month, is now the biggest liberal political blog in our dataset.
One blog for which we do not have data is Jim Kennedy’s Vigilance blog. Kennedy is President of Montgomery County’s Teach the Facts group, which advocates for a liberal, open curriculum on gender identity issues in the county’s schools. Kennedy acts as a patient ringmaster in the Chuck Barris mold while dozens of mostly anonymous liberals and conservatives battle it out on everything from nature vs. nurture to the origins of religion. MPW friend Dana Beyer even made news there by announcing her 2010 candidacy for District 18 delegate against a crowded forum of hostile anons. Vigilance must get tons of visits judging from its comment counts but Kennedy seldom strays into non-gender issues.
The decline of the liberal blogs is an important event in the state’s blogosphere. We will discuss the consequences of the left’s fall in Part Five.
Friday, January 25, 2008
WAMU Covers the 4th District
A hat tip over at FSP to Isaac Smith for posting the announcement of the radio debate between to the two principle contenders in this race. It will be live at noon on Friday.
Now when will WaPo begin their coverage?
Postscript: Here is the link to the WAMU site. To hear the radio click on the show over on the right. It starts around 19:50 and ends at 45:00.
