[Infowarrior] - Next D.C. career: blogger relations

[Richard Forno]

Next D.C. career: blogger relations
By: Gloria Park 
August 5, 2010 04:35 AM EDT

http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=3F152456-18FE-70B2-A85A1078E5A7DCDD

Not only is the blogosphere changing how voters consume information, it’s also creating new jobs in politics, policy and online communications consulting. Although there is still no formal job description for “blogger relations” staffers, these part communications, part research, part online political organizing specialists are a growing industry in the political world. 

“It’s becoming as common to have someone managing communications with bloggers as it was to have a press secretary 10 years ago,” said Patrick Hynes, founder and president of Hynes Communications, a social media public affairs agency. 

Not exactly a press secretary equivalent, this hybrid position requires a number of skill sets, from communications and research to political organizing and an ability to take advantage of a whole slew of social media tools. 

“I essentially interfaced with the communications team, the research team, political-delegate teams and the new-media team to be a conduit for the party in working with bloggers,” said Kombiz Lavasany of New Partners, describing his role at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. 

“It entails communicating with bloggers and making sure that they’ve got the best, most up-to-date information,” said Liz Mair, who was online communications director for the Republican National Committee in 2008 and is now vice president at Hynes Communications and an online communications consultant for Carly Fiorina’s Senate campaign. 

Both Lavasany and Mair told POLITICO that they rarely sent e-mail blasts to bloggers, instead opting for more filtered information, at many times tailored for one blogger and his or her area of interest. 

Prominent bloggers said they get the difference. 

Ezra Klein, staff writer and policy blogger for The Washington Post, said that, for him, “knowledge” separates the best blogger relations staffers from the rest. 

“I’m not interested in getting a quote or a scoop, so somebody who understands both the issues and motivations for their boss’s effort well enough to explain it is very useful to me. They’re almost more like policy people,” said Klein, who interacts with blogger outreach staff on the Hill and at think tanks. 

“The blogger folks are dealing with a mix of reporter-bloggers and activists because the world of bloggers has enlarged,” said Klein. “Just as blogging has professionalized quite dramatically, this position has had a similar trajectory.” 

Michelle Malkin, a conservative blogger and author, credited staff at The Heritage Foundation, minority staff at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Senate Judiciary Committee and House Homeland Security Committee and staff in the offices of Rep. John Boehner and Sen. Tom Coburn with excellent blogger management.

“There are some staffers who make the mistake of spamming bloggers with press releases that are not blogworthy,” said Malkin. “What distinguishes the good outreach is having information that hasn’t already gone out to POLITICO, the wires and everybody else. They understand the power of the collective conservative blogosphere and target not just the highest-traffic bloggers but also the second- and third-tier bloggers.” 

“It’s a way of making sure that information gets in the hands of several key constituencies when you run a political campaign,” said Mair. 

Dealing with bloggers, said the new specialists, can be different from dealing with mainstream reporters. For example, attribution is often handled differently. 

“There are some bloggers who don’t necessarily follow the same rules of reporters who try to find both sides of the story. Bloggers tend to come at an issue from a specific perspective, more like op-ed columnists than reporters,” said Katie Harbath, chief digital strategist at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. 

An upshot of this difference is that campaigns may leave fewer “fingerprints” in the information they feed to bloggers. 

The “mainstream press wants to attribute more, not less. But there are certain bloggers who don’t mind giving off the impression that they had a brilliant idea all on their own, without any information from sources,” said Mair. “With these bloggers, if you want your candidate’s name on a post, you have to explicitly tell them. The sourcing is different.” 

Another crucial difference is that some bloggers are or have been political operatives themselves, often providing feedback on what a campaign could be doing differently. 

“Many bloggers actually make suggestions for things that they think the campaign could be doing, whether that’s showing up to a particular event or talking about a particular issue more,” said Mair. “That’s something unique to working with bloggers.” 

These differences between bloggers and reporters require different approaches in campaigns’ outreach strategies to the two groups and, in turn, a staffer devoted exclusively to fielding blogger requests. 

“The advantage of a full-time blogger outreach staff is that they can always think about the needs of bloggers,” said Matt Browner Hamlin, who was deputy Internet director for Sen. Chris Dodd’s 2008 presidential campaign and blogged for My Left Nutmeg, a Connecticut community blog. 

“When it’s a communications staffer who has to wear other hats in addition to blogger outreach, he or she doesn’t have the same level of focus and dedication to blogger outreach in particular,” Hamlin added.

The advent of blogger relations staff is a natural outcome of the democratization of information and communications over the past decade, said Hynes. “The major media organizations have gotten smaller, and yet there is more media now than ever before. There are more avenues to pitch stories and create narratives that are favorable to your side. Blogs are just one of these avenues.” 

In some cases, a series of favorable blog posts on a candidate — or negative posts on an opponent — may have more impact than an ad blitz by a campaign, said Lavasany. “There are many examples of Republicans who ended up losing after being defined in a negative light by political bloggers.” 

Former Virginia Sen. George Allen’s “macaca” comment in his 2006 Senate race is one example. “The information that bloggers provided on the origins of the word and other research ended up changing the race in a few weeks — from Allen winning that race and subsequently running for president to Allen losing the race,” said Lavasany. 

While campaigns recognize the value of blogger relations, those strapped for resources may be unable to devote a full-time staffer to the position. Especially in congressional campaigns, the press secretary or a new media specialist often takes on blogger engagement responsibilities. 

Meanwhile, others are outsourcing the job to a new crop of communications firms. The NRSC has hired Hynes Communications for online blogger outreach, said Harbath. 

There is still little consensus on where this hybrid position should be placed within a staff. 

“Every campaign realizes that it needs somebody in the blogger outreach space, but there is no consensus over what the scope of that is, whether that’s in politics, communications or new media,” said Soren Dayton of New Media Strategies. 

“The ideological blogger will be handled by someone who is half coalitions and half communications,” said Dayton. He added that the online left has often been treated like a constituency, as it emerged in the early 2000s with a “unified message and a clear sense of what their issues were and who their opinion leaders were. It looked like an interest group from the outside.” 

As the position becomes institutionalized, expect to see blogger relations staff playing more visible, active roles in campaigns, said Harbath. 

“I think we’re going to start seeing the blogger relations person being another voice in the campaign and posting on Twitter and Facebook, as well as getting information to bloggers,” she said. 

Note: An earlier version misstated a job held in 2008 by Liz Mair. She worked at the Republican National Committee.