Yeah, this’ll probably need to go into the revised blog paper

Should Henry Farrell and I revise our blog paper — and of course we’ll be revising it — Wednesday’s White House Briefing by Dan Froomkin in washingtonpost.com will probably have to be cited. Why? I’m glad you asked:

Jimmy Orr, the White House’s Internet guru, wants the White House Web site to get bloggier. “We’re trying to make it more bloggish,” he says in an interview. “People need to see that we’re on the site and we’re listening to what they have to say.” So, he says: “We’re going to try — as questions come in, and as people have comments about the events of the day — to be more proactive.” Blogs — short for Web logs — are all the rage these days. And while some people use them for such things as chronicling their sex lives, they have more significantly emerged as a potent vehicle for news and views on the Internet. Two of the most seminal features of blogs are interaction with readers and immediacy. And the White House Web site under Orr, an enthusiastic 37-year-old press office staffer, has already taken some steps in that direction. White House Interactive is generally updated daily with a new e-mail question from the public and an answer, typically from someone fairly high up in the White House staff…. A while back, Orr was his own guest on “Ask the White House” One questioner raised the topic of blogging. And it turns out Orr’s a fan. “Bloggers are very instrumental. They are important. They can lead the news. And they’ve been underestimated,” he wrote. “Here’s what the bloggers do. They notice something in the news or something they’ve observed that maybe the ‘traditional’ media hasn’t covered or isn’t spending much time on. But they think it is significant. So, they give the story a second life (or first). And they talk about it. And others talk about it. Before you know it, it is leading the news.” In his online appearance, Orr mentioned a few blogs he reads regularly. He e-mailed me a more extensive list: • The Note, from ABC News • Noted Now, also from ABC News • Andrew Sullivan • Instapundit • OpinionJournal.com’s Best of the Web Today • HyperGeneMediaBlog • White House Briefing (You’re reading it.) • James Lileks And he’s not the only one in the White House who reads blogs, he says. Far from it. “They’re important here,” he says. “I can tell you that a lot of people read them.” Note to White House officials (and others): Don’t forget to nominate your favorites for washingtonpost.com’s 2004 Best Blogs – Politics and Elections Readers’ Choice Awards.

Bloggers are rightly accused of excessive navel-gazing, and according to the Washington Times’ Chris Baker, blogs “have been the domain primarily of amateur political pundits, conspiracy theorists and pseudo-experts on any number of topics.” Still, it is worth observing that both Orr’s analysis of blogs — as well as his reading preferences — seem to buttress the arguments made in our blog paper. [Hey, what about that WaPo contest?–ed. Readers should feel free to knock themselves out.]