Osama Bin Boogeyman and the "Philadelphia Blogger"
The 2006 elections are over. Bloggers have feasted on the spoils.
Philly For Change sent its supporters out to the suburbs and got Congressmen elected. Yet the margin of Casey's victory means that their efforts will be ignored. Philadelphia will be ignored. Philadelphia will be forgotten.
Philadelphia has no Osama Bin Boogeyman.
The reform movement could care less about Philadelphia. Just take a look at the Philadelphia Independent Media Center's Homepage. On most days, none of the stories are local. Just take a look at this screen shot of their what the Philly IMC labels "Local Blogs and Community Groups."
From my random samplescreenshot of Philly IMC's local blogroll, we see a post by Marc Lamont Hill discussing Saddam Hussein's death sentence. Eschaton, an avowed supporter of Drinking Liberally at Tangiers, features a blurb about a "conservative nutjob" who sent white powder to prominent liberal figures. Young Philly Politics features a post about State Rep. Rick Taylor, a dude from the suburbs. Despite the name of the blog, 99% of YPP's posts have absolutely nothing to do with Philadelphia. Suburban Guerilla featues a post about Senior Bush taking control from Junior Bush. I don't know why peeps waste their time in the suburbs.
Where is the "local"?
These blogs are not about Philadelphia.
They have no interest in local issues.
Their stories have nothing to do with Philadelphia's community.
No one would consider USA Today a local newspaper simply because it is published in... wherever the hell it happens to be published. No one should consider these blogs "local" simply because their writers happen to live in our region.
Philadelphia stands at a cross roads in its history.
The barbarians are at our gates and our walls are quite literally crumbling. We cannot afford another Street Adminstration. We cannot afford to pay another 8 years of corruption taxes.
These so-called local bloggers write more about Connecticut and Ned Lamont than they do about Bob Brady. These bloggers need to turn their focus to Philadelphia. They need to stand up and be counted.
The Monday after the most important work of art in Philadelphia's history is sold to a bunch of corporate trust funders, all these people can do is write about what it going on elsewhere.
Osama Bin LadenBoogeyman does not matter to Philadelphia. The average Philadelphian is more likely to be gunned down by some random bullet outside City Hall than blown to smithereens by some al Qaeda liquid bomb. Statistically speaking, Osama Bin Laden is the boogeyman. Yet, these fellas can't stop talking about the boogeymanOsama.
Where is the outcry about Jefferson selling "Gross Clinic" to some museum in Arkansas?!?!? After all, this story is tailor made for the blogosphere. Just look at the protagonists.
Thomas Jefferson, the prototypical local "Bad Corporate Citizen," is selling a cultural treasure to Wal-Mart, the prototypical multi-national "Bad Corporate Citizen."
The bloggers should be eating this shit up.
But aside from the Illadelph and some art blogger in San Francisco (!), peeps don't seem to give a shit. In fact, our local "blogger of record" seems more amused by the idea of building a Guggenheim BilbaoDelaware than the ramifications of the sale on Philadelphia's cultural history.
But who can blame Blinq? At least he has the decency to focus on the occasional local issue whereas folks like Dick Polman and Will Bunch spend all their time on the fancy national issues. I mean, if you are seriously concerned about making newspapers relevant to their readers and saving the jobs of your boyz in the newsroom, maybe you ought to start with the content you generate.
I don't mean to be callous. But as far as Philadelphia is concerned, withdrawing our troops from Iraq does not matter more than fixing our public schools. Over 400 Philadelphians will die this year because our City cares more about making a few peeps in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms rich than doing something about educating our children.
But Philly's got no Osama Bin Boogeyman so no one will even notice.
If you want to call yourself a "Philadelphia blogger," stand up and be counted.
Forget Stephen Colbert and the Daily Show. Turn your lenses to our City. Focus on our issues. Focus on the issues that actually affect our lives.
3 comments:
Keep it local!
Most of our feature stories are local (http://www.phillyimc.org/en/feature/archive.shtml).
Our blog feeder doesn't work very well. It can't run atom feeds for example so we don't have yrs up there. Also posters like Atrios and Suburban Guerilla are always up there b/c they post so often compared to the local bloggers.
I would like to see more local relevant bloggers out there.
Hey, it is what it is. I just think that if your blog is predominantly about national politics, you should not be considered a "local blogger."
Maybe PhillyIMC should just remove these blogs from their feed.
Here's a question: What will Jefferson do with that $68 million? Something to truly benefit the city and its people? I'd hope. That masterpiece has hung in a place where few have witnessed its power. And another thing: do you know how much $68 million really is? I don't. But its a lot -- more than the newspaper company earns in a year. A lot more.
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