Akron's New World of Politics

Everybody has an opinion. Why not share it?

The experiment continues on Ohio.com's The Point political blog which raises questions on just what the role of blogging is and what should it be this election cycle? Even though half of the team is operating under editorial restrictions because of "old media" ethical considerations, just when does the "new media" part kick in?

Mind you, I freely admit on my blog I hate the term "new media"...because I don't consider blogging "new" by any stretch, and much of what's new comes out of "old media", AKA mainstream media. The field of commenting on politics is hardly new; Thomas Paine figured it out hundreds of years ago. Thank Gutenberg for the first giant leap toward making the media the business we can all share in.

The only thing remotely fresh here is the use of a new platform (the Web) in spreading the ideas and words to a broader audience.

LINK to the AkronNewsNow blog with audio of this morning's interview

When we were setting up this morning's interview segments with Ben Keeler and Kyle Kutuchief on WAKR's Ray Horner Show part of the fun was the ongoing discussion with both Ben and Kyle on just what's going on here; do we consider the Web and projects such as The Point and even Cleveland.com's defunct Wide Open competitors?

My response: no. As noted before, you don't add to a discussion by subtracting voices and ideas. Adding alternate viewpoints to the political mix in Akron can only be healthy, especially given the one-party rule of the City and what looks increasingly like one-party rule of the County as well with the exception of a handful of offices.

What I find fascinating is the simple power of blogs to stimulate thinking; even with the restrictions posed by Ben's candidacy for the Summit GOP Central Committee, Alex Arshinkoff's objections and Ohio.com's ground rules after the flap he's still able to articulate his views on his own website The Keeler Report; Kyle certainly has the same opportunity to handle his opinions both on Ohio.com as well as his own independent website The Chief Source he administers with six others. It's the free flow of information that drives the American political process, and what the web had clearly done is to take the flow from the fingers of the few and expanded the reach more democratically.

It powers Senator Kevin Coughlin's attempt to unseat Arshinkoff with his New Summit Republicans site, allowing him and his supporters greater reach. Arshinkoff supporters have the same opportunity with their Keep Summit County Republicans Strong site but now instead of limiting the debate to those who can finance the printing presses and broadcast transmitters anyone can utilize the technology to make a difference, no matter what their perspective may be.