Quoted (Signifying Nothing: how does saying nothing at all become so loud?)

Thursday, 21 April 2005

Quoted

My local media infamy continues to increase in this week’s issue of Planet Weekly, one of Jackson’s two alt-weekies:

Such questions [about ties between bloggers and political campaigns, and whether independent blogs are campaign contributions] are becoming more and more prevalent as websites and blogs become more of a force in politics at all levels, said Dr. Chris Lawrence, visiting professor of political science at Millsaps College and webmaster of a blog called “Signifying Nothing,” which he’s operated since 2003 [sic: actually, November 2002, but who cares?]. Such sites can serve as an organizational tool for volunteers, a media channel for voters, or a method for campaigns to get their message out, said Lawrence.

The article is about the Jackson’s Next Mayor blog, which is in something of a pissing contest with the Jackson Free Press, the other alt-weekly; the JFP says JNM is carrying water for incumbent mayor Harvey Johnson’s opponents, while JNM says the JFP is carrying water for Johnson—I’d charge both as being “guilty” on all counts, as a mostly-disinterested observer.

Incidentally, it’s amazing how much more pub I’m getting now that I’m leaving town…

2 comments:

Any views expressed in these comments are solely those of their authors; they do not reflect the views of the authors of Signifying Nothing, unless attributed to one of us.

1. Schizo wrote @ Fri, 22 Apr 2005, 9:56 am CDT:

I think you’re right with the guilty as charged observation, with the caveat that Lange himself is at least trying to be fair to everyone—it’s his commenters and fellow poster Wilson Carroll that hate Harvey so passionately. She Who Must Not Be Ignored doesn’t even attempt to hide her contempt for Melton and Whitlow.

Re: your earlier post about leftists alts. The Planet was founded as a arts/culture alt with a strong conservative political bent—founder Sean Johnson would rant for DAYS on end about liberal bias at the CL, or about Harvey Johnson’s knee-jerk liberalism or whatever. The current incarnation of the Planet used to have three conservative opinion columnists and three liberal columnists—two of the conservatives have stopped writing and the other one is the editor himself. So that leaves the three liberals to rant to their hearts’ content.

I miss PW’s conservative bent but don’t know how to fix the balance.

2. Sean Johnson wrote @ Sat, 30 Apr 2005, 1:30 pm CDT:

I miss the way it used to be too.

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