Sync

LITTLE ROCK — There is a cloud hanging over Arkansas this active election season, and it's not just the one that seems to be looming above the head of anyone labeled as a Washington insider.

It's not new, exactly, but it's very different than it was just two short years ago. People who know it well will say that, like much else, it's been slower to form in the Natural State than elsewhere in the country.

It is, of course, the blogosphere — more particularly the local political blogosphere, which is not simply alive in Arkansas, but actually informative, timely and more diverse than one might imagine. Yes, it seems there is such a thing as an intelligent conversation on the Internet. And about politics, no less.

What's more, it is one that is fueled largely by folks who make their living outside of mainstream media — people who happen to be well connected enough to always have an ear to the ground but who don't work in the news business. In other words, hobbyists.

Yet, as those who keep the conversation going will tell you, there really is more to it than having an opinion, a computer and an Internet connection.

Blake Rutherford, Blake's Think Tank

www.blakesthinktank.com

Launched more than three years ago in “a very different form,” Rutherford’s blog was originally intended to regularly delve into a lot of things, like business, technology, sports and culture. And while it still will engage in other areas from time to time, a long-standing interest and work history in politics largely determined the subject that would become its primary focus, Rutherford said.

While communication is his field of work at Stone Ward advertising agency, Rutherford’s day job is not the blog. However, his is a position that has led him to write and talk about how to harness the power of the Internet, blogs and social media. So it's a nice fit for a hobby.

“If you look at what the Web has done from a perspectives standpoint, it has really made the media much more democratized,” he said, noting how blogs enable heretofore unheard opinions to get out there. “I'm one of those people that tends to think that's a good thing.”

But with that voice comes a responsibility, he said.

“I'm not a journalist by trade and I don't represent to be a journalist. But at the same time, I recognize the standards,” he said. “In order to keep people engaged, I have a responsibility to be truthful in what I say.”

It's that kind of commitment to quality that's helped develop the blogosphere across the board. That and an approach that is mutually supportive rather than competitive, Rutherford said. Information is shared and each local blog has a different take on it, even if it's coming from the same end of the ideological or political spectrum.

“What makes each blog interesting in its own way … is each has its own voice and personality that shines through,” Rutherford said.

That also keeps readers interested.

“I guess it's a matter of opinion, but I'm one who thinks that if there's a difference and a variety of perspective on a topic it's a good thing. [The conversation] only becomes stronger.”

Jason Tolbert, The Tolbert Report

http://tolbertreport.com

Though always interested in politics, Tolbert said his real activity in the arena didn't come until his first job out of college: revising the Web site of the Arkansas Faith and Ethics Counsel, a socially conservative, values-oriented advocacy organization.

Today, though, he's an accountant by day who devotes his lunches and off hours to maintaining his blog, which began a little more than two years ago. At that time, he said, the intent was really to write about “myself and my own involvement” as he volunteered for former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign — “a truly personal Web log.”

Over time, though, the focus has shifted to politics and policy, offering both news and opinion. Whether covering elections in 2008, the state legislature in 2009, or the health-care debate of this year, the intent has been to tackle topics from the local perspective, which has increasingly become an insider's one, he said.

It's an evolution that's been mirrored in access.

“Two years ago I'd have trouble getting a state representative to talk to me,” he said. “Now I've had U.S. Senate candidates mad at me because I've not interviewed them.”

And the politicians themselves aren't the only ones noticing his work. The fact he was offered a newspaper column is attributable to the blog, he said.

But “I have no desire to be a full-time journalist. If it ever were more than part-time, I'd have to cut it back,” said Tolbert, who was not unique among his colleagues in reporting that the blog itself, even with strong readership and some advertising, is no cash cow.

“I do good to break even,” he said.

The appeal is entirely in doing something he enjoys, which helps him do it well, he said. And this is a year in which there's no doubt there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had, with national attention on races like the one for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Blanche Lincoln, a seat considered important and winnable by both major political parties.

David Kinkade, The Arkansas Project

www.thearkansasproject.com

Though one of the first rules of running a successful blog is updating it regularly, Kinkade considers it a credit to the medium that it can be back-burnered or even shut down with minimal pressure.

“If you have a blog that's run its course … it's no big deal to pull the plug on it,” he said, comparing it to the loss of capital you'd suffer shutting down a print publication, for example.

Then again, since his blog is on indefinite hiatus, it makes sense for him to say that.

A freelance writer by trade, Kinkade came to blogging with a background working on either side of the aisle as a speechwriter and then campaign communications manager. The blog, begun in 2008, sprang from the realization that “one of the things I was missing — as a raging egomaniac — was something with my name on it.”

At first, the idea was to have several writers for the blog, which from its bright red banner to its pictures of girls in bikinis was always intended to have an irreverent, comic tone. But ultimately it became a one-man show, said Kinkade, and thus “a little more difficult to keep all the balls in the air” when work gets busy, as it is for him now.

That's great for the pocketbook, maybe, but bad for the blog, which, as of this writing, has been idle since a Feb. 22 post talked about being updated more regularly. It's accompanied by one of those bikini pictures, this time of Arkansan Survivor winner Natalie White. She has little to do with politics, but there could be worse notes to go quiet on, Kinkade said.

Still, he’s hopeful it won't stay that way.

“Oh I hope to have more quality commentary and keen insights to this year's political debates,” he said, almost keeping a straight face.

Should the time ever come to pull the plug, he will. The point was to address his frustration with political coverage in Arkansas, which he said “always gravitates … to this gray consensus area.” His plan was “to throw a grenade into the middle of all that.”

That it has helped grow and develop the local blogosphere is fine, but Kinkade said he's not sure blogs will be so relevant — or at least so talked about — within the next few election cycles. With the way Twitter and Facebook are changing the flow of information, blogs might soon become quaint.

You know, sort of like MySpace is now.