Who Am I, Really?
I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the lead headline in the Plain Dealer today”Politics’ new wild card: blogs”. From my years of campaign experience, I knew that getting the headline above the fold is huge. Doesn’t matter if it is good press or bad press. You will be remembered. So I skimmed the article until I saw what I wanted to see — meetthebloggers.net, but then, I read what Mark Naymik had written:
“Many local and statewide candidates have given interviews to one loose group of left-leaning political junkies known as “meetthebloggers.net” which later posts complete audio and sometimes full transcripts of these in-depth interviews.”
Left-leaning! Junkies! Now, I know why George Nemeth was so “honked” last week when someone told him that he was a “lefty”. Those of you who know me are aware that I have been involved with this enterprise called Meet The Bloggers, and that George Nemeth, Tim Russo, and I have been working on a business plan. I started doubting myself. Am I a lefty? What is a “lefty”? Some would say I am a lefty hands down because I am left-handed, but I am pretty sure that that is not what we are talking about here. Loose? I haven’t been what you would call loose since I married my husband twenty-two years ago. Needless to say, I was not feeling too good about this article any more, but I continued to read and saw many names of bloggers I know and read. On the whole, I thought the article was good press so I was okay with it. But I sure wished Mark Naymik had checked his facts on what Meet The Bloggers is and what we are trying to do here in Northeast Ohio. But you can’t have everything, can you? Today, Tim and I had lunch with Cousin Ronnie from Delaware. He had flown in to attend Aunt Gerri’s memorial service. He is one of my favorite “in-laws” so I placed myself next to him because the conversation is always lively and thought-provoking. So we eventually got around to the question of what have you been doing lately? I told him about Meet The Bloggers and he asked ”what is your mission statement?” “Our mission statement? I replied. Well, we have been working on that for our business plan. I guess this is what it would be: Meet The Bloggers provides a platform for civic, political, and community discourse. We interview citizens, community activists, government officials, political candidates and other people of note about policies and issues that impact peoples’ lives. Bloggers will write about the in-depth interviews, readers will comment and discuss the interviews with others in their community and then we will have created a community of better informed and educated voters and citizens who will be able to make informed decisions at the ballot box. He then said, “that is a great mission statement. Put it everywhere–on your website, on your letterhead, tell everyone who asks that this is your mission. When you or one of your partners loses sight of where your business is going, point to that mission statement and you will get right back on track.” He was right. I came home, read our mission statement and saw that nowhere in our mission statement does it say that we will steer people to think one way or another. It says that we will give the information and let people make up their own minds. Granted, the bloggers who attend and write bring their own personalities to the table, but yet the comments we get from people range from complete agreement to you are so off-base where do you get these ideas. We would love to have more variety in the bloggers who come to the interviews and we would like to have more Republican candidates meet with us, but with comments in the Plain Dealer like “loose group of left leaning political junkies” our mission is more difficult to attain, but we will. Our persistence wil pay off. I know who I am. I am a woman who wants to make sure that Ohio is a government by the people, for the people, and of the people. I want as many people as possible engaged in the political process watching the elected officials who work for us, not for special interests. And I never, ever want to be the kind of person who slants a news story so that it reads more like an editorial than news. And I never, ever want to be the person compromised by special interests or someone telling me I have to put things in a story that I don’t want there. And if I forget, all I have to do is read our mission statement.