Globe and Mail on DNC Blogging

Here’s a Globe and Mail article, in today’s edition, on DNC convention blogging. Here’s a clip:

While many still view these digital diaries as repositories for lukewarm teen angst, blogs have, in the past two years, become the preferred information sluice for political pundits large and small. About 35 bloggers received official accreditation for the Democratic National Convention that concluded Thursday in Boston.

One of those lucky three dozen included Peter Rukavina, who lives in Charlottetown and had the honour of being the lone accredited Canadian blogger at the Democratic gathering. Having to self-finance the trip meant that Mr. Rukavina, a computer programmer, could afford to stay only for two of the four nights of the convention.

Still, Mr. Rukavina did his best to harness the power of bloggery. His site, reinvented.net, offered a very personal and personable perspective on the political process. “I’m not sure I’ve been able to get any real sense of what this convention is for,” he wrote in a posting on Tuesday, the second day of the proceedings. “This is not a national town-hall meeting; it’s more akin to a televised debutante ball.

“I’m afraid that politics here in America is so abstracted from reality that it is, in fact, impossible to understand on a level other than the superficial.”

Mercury News columnist Dan Gillmor believes that Mr. Rukavina and others like him provide a perfect example of what bloggers can and should bring to the journalism conversation.