bloggers on the payroll?
There's an article in The Hill that focuses on how far behind the other Democratic candidates are in leveraging the Internet to build support at the grass-roots level. Of course, the article doesn't even mention Joe Trippi, which is a shameful omission. What really struck my attention though was this graf:
The campaign is paying bloggers to pump up enthusiasm on the official blog? We all know (and envy) that Matthew Gross is the campaign's chief blogger and that they have lured many of our own Dean Nation alumni to Burlington to maintain/update the blog as paid staff. That's 100% legitimate (and is in fact why the official blog is so interesting and innovative).
But the implication here is that the campaign is paying for false boosterism by "professional surfers" to "keep up enthusiasm" in the comments threads. There's no evidence for this whatsoever, and Matthew Gross debunked it in an open thread on the O-blog yesterday:
Still, the denial by Matthew in comments won't be enough to stop this story from gaining ground by those with a vested interest in Dean's failure - especially if they see it as a way to spin Dean's greatest asset (his Internet support) as his Achilles heel. Rabid pro-Bush partisans like LGF already take the allegation as gospel. The prior history of Dean internet supporters acting in bad faith doesn't help, either. The Clark bloggers have predictably seized upon this story, too.
There needs to be a stronger response from the campaign, sufficiently high up the food chain (Trippi, IMHO) that the allegations can be authoritatively put to rest.
Dean has done other things to maximize his online fundraising punch, like reinvesting money into expanding donor lists and paying “bloggers” or professional Internet surfers to keep the enthusiasm up on his website.
The campaign is paying bloggers to pump up enthusiasm on the official blog? We all know (and envy) that Matthew Gross is the campaign's chief blogger and that they have lured many of our own Dean Nation alumni to Burlington to maintain/update the blog as paid staff. That's 100% legitimate (and is in fact why the official blog is so interesting and innovative).
But the implication here is that the campaign is paying for false boosterism by "professional surfers" to "keep up enthusiasm" in the comments threads. There's no evidence for this whatsoever, and Matthew Gross debunked it in an open thread on the O-blog yesterday:
Hey all,
The Hill article is confusing. The only paid bloggers are me and Zephyr-- which the author must be referring to.
We certainly don't pay anyone to post on the threads, which is how some people read the article. When you have up to 2,200 comments a day, that would be an incredible waste of money.
Posted by Mathew Gross at October 8, 2003 12:53 AM
Still, the denial by Matthew in comments won't be enough to stop this story from gaining ground by those with a vested interest in Dean's failure - especially if they see it as a way to spin Dean's greatest asset (his Internet support) as his Achilles heel. Rabid pro-Bush partisans like LGF already take the allegation as gospel. The prior history of Dean internet supporters acting in bad faith doesn't help, either. The Clark bloggers have predictably seized upon this story, too.
There needs to be a stronger response from the campaign, sufficiently high up the food chain (Trippi, IMHO) that the allegations can be authoritatively put to rest.
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