A hypothesis about blog coverage

The extent to which the mainstream media has simultaneously embraced and covered the blog phenomenon for the Democratic National Convention has overwhelmed even a skeptic like Josh Marshall:

I buzzed by the MSNBC convention coverage site (probably through the ad link they’re running on this and other blogs) and was flabbergasted to see that they’ve absorbed the blogging model to something like a mind-bending degree…. I’ve never been much for the blog triumphalism that seems always to be so much a part of the blog universe. Blogs make up a small, specialized niche within the interdependent media ecosystem — mainly not producers but primary or usually secondary consumers — like small field mice, ferrets, or bats. When I see the mainest of mainstream outfits buying into the concept or the model I really don’t know what to think. The best way I can describe my reaction is some mix of puzzlement and incredulity.

Indeed, the Jennifer Lee has a story in the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal has gone all out — it’s topic A of John Fund’s column; Carl Bialik and Elizabeth Weinstein provide an exhaustive report on the convention bloggers, and I just got a call from another WSJ reporter for another story. Even though I’ve written about the ever-increasing connections between the blogosphere and mediasphere, I must also confess surprise at the intensity of coverage over the past few days. What’s going on? Here’s a quick-and-dirty hypothesis — the media abhors a news vacuum, and a nominating conventions is one whopper of a news vacuum. There are no real surprises awaiting reporters in either Boston this week or New York come Labor Day. The only moderately interesting question this week is how well Edwards and Kerry deliver their speeches. Even that’s not news as much as interpretation. This is a perfect scenario for the media to increase their coverage of blogs. They are an undeniably new facet of convention coverage, which makes them news. They’re a process story rather than a substance story, which the media likes to write about. Finally, one of the blogosphere’s comparative advantage is real-time snarky responses and interpretations of media events. Just a thought. UPDATE: David Adesnik reinforces the point Henry Farrell and I have made about the skewed distribution of the blogosphere:

I’ve also noticed that the same few bloggers are getting all of the attention. Since one of them is Patrick Belton, I think that’s just great. But it means that other blogs are getting left out and that journalists are limiting their own supply of information. For example, all but one of the bloggers mentioned in Howard Kurtz’s convention-blogging round-up also get mentioned or quoted in Jenny 8-ball’s round-up at the NYT.

And here’s a subsciption-only link to the Christopher Conkey story in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal. LAST UPDATE: Lindsay Beyerstein at Majkthise offers another excellent hypothesis explaining media coverage of convention bloggers:

I would also argue that media are primarily fascinated by the credentialling of bloggers, rather than the medium itself. Extending press credentials to non-journalists is a bold move by mainstream political parties. Effectively, the subjects of news unilaterally expanded the media by extending access. Journalists see themselves as professionals. Self-regulation is one of the distinctive features of a profession. Just as doctors reserve the right to decide who can practice medicine, many journalists feel entitled to decide who gets to make the news.