A new report at Yahoo shows that presidential cabinet members aren’t immune to the blogging bug. Health and Human Services secretary Mike Leavitt and Michael Chertoff of Homeland Security in the US are two of the newest members of this centuries newest gold rush, blogging. This just goes to show that anyone with a computer can and will start a blog if they feel they have something to talk about.
The blogs give Leavitt, and Chertoff an opportunity to discuss issues facing their departments and the ability to sound off on criticism about their policies.
Leavitt says he writes every blog entry himself, often late at night in his hotel rooms while traveling. His concern is that his blog entries are too long. It’s quite possible, after using a word counter, I put one of his posts at over 2,400 words. This isn’t uncommon, most of his posts are quite long winded and not all that entertaining.
“I’ve decided to wade in a little deeper into blogdom by writing one for the next month or so,” Leavitt wrote in his first entry. “I’m going to see how I feel after that time period. I may continue; I may not.
Chertoff on the other hand, does not write his posts himself. Not writing posts himself is a bit hypocritical considering what he had to say about why he started the blog in the first place.
“I blog because I can open a dialogue with the American people about our nation’s security. It’s a very personal experience.”
Personal? Pfft…
“I come up with the ideas and someone in the department writes the post, which I edit heavily.”
He even has a paid “tech guy” to oversee the blog daily. How’s that for well-spent tax money?
The State Department has also recently started their own blog. I guess nobody is immune to the blogging bug.
Hmmm, we are not sure what we think about our politicians blogging, especially those that have staff members do it for them.
On the surface it is nice to see that they are trying a different means to reach out to their constituents. But, are they doing it because they really want to, or is it because they see blogging as the latest hot thing and they feel that they need to jump on the bandwagon.
On one way blogging would be a cheaper option for politicians to burn up all the tax monies. But then, it wouldn’t have the same effects as it isn’t as confronting as TV.
We can’t control what is being fed to us on TV in form of advertising. We can only choose to switch off. But with the Internet we have to physically navigate to the particular site.
So I guess they only blog to be part of the “hot trend” as it’s the “thing” to do right now.
Monika
I’m not sure I like the idea of tax dollars supporting a techie for some official’s blog, especially if it’s just an attempt at personal labeling or will be used for campaign purposes. But as far as motive, aren’t most blogs driven by some self-serving agenda? Even personal blogs serve a personal goal.