In response to comments made by journalists at the Sorenson VA Bloggers Summit, panelist F.T. Rea has posted an intriguing challenge. He calls it a “Weekend Without Echoes“:
“…I’d like to propose that bloggers who want to participate in a little experiment, use the weekend of July 21-23 to show the rest of the blogosphere that it can be done. It would be a weekend vacation from copying, and piling on, and talking points … a weekend without calling everyone with whom one disagrees a “liberal,†or a “conservative,†as if those are dirty words.”
F.T. is referring to the “echo chamber” effect of political blogs, a tendency among some higher-profile boggers to link and respond to stories or posts that they have seen on other blogs.
Like my new friend Conaway Haskins, I too consider myself “a writer who blogs“. When I first began Semi Truths in 2001, I felt very much like a lone voice in the wilderness and much of what I have historically posted is original material. But the blogosphere has changed, and now many of the sites that I read regularly are fellow VA bloggers. Unfortunately, it is this very tendency to read and comment upon each other’s blogs that drove me away from this practice for a few years, but it is also this newfound sense of community that has brought me back in.
So, I’m in. My real challenge as a blogger has been to find any time to write, but I should be able to build up some “original” material to post that weekend of July 21 – 23. For just one example, see my essay from two days ago on my family’s trip to D.C. for Independence Day.
Thank you, F.T., for your efforts to expand our definition of blogging.
UPDATE: Vivian Paige is collecting links to the “coalition of the willing”, those bloggers who will participate in the WWE. I am scheduled to be on Coy Barefoot‘s “Charlottesville — Right Now!” radio show this afternoon at 4:30 and will talk about the WWE then. The radio interview has been rescheduled for July 20, which is even closer to the WWE.