Tagged: blog

Never breaking stride, Malloy makes candidacy official.

One week ago today, Dan Malloy officially became a candidate for Governor.
Video:


Malloy continued his torrid pace of appearances, appearing on WFSB’s Face the State, answering questions from panelists Daniela Altimari of The Hartford Courant, Ted Mann of The Day, and host Dennis House.
Video (thanks to ctblogger):


Malloy’s Sunday appearances included a conversation with Connecticut Newsmakers host Tom Monahan.
Video (thanks again to ctblogger):


There’s more after the jump…
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Citizen-Journalist, meet Journalist-Citizen.

Steve Collins was not going quietly into the night.

Back on November 11, 2008, I posted an installment to a thread I revisit occasionally (like now), categorized on this blog under Media, wherein I sporadically chronicle the chronic condition of traditional media, specifically print media, here in your state, CT. The post was entitled Connecticut print media about to shrink again?, and it referred to a story on Steve Collins’ blog about the imminent demise of Steve’s employer, the Bristol Press, along with a bunch of other holdings of the bankrupt Journal Register company. I was sure that both Steve and his wife, who also worked for the Press, were goners.

Turns out, Steve had a bit more fight in him than he let on. Read A look back on the effort to save the Press on Steve’s blog, wherein he discloses his December 4, 2008 letter on the subject to state Commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development, Joan McDonald.

Worth reading.

Due to a prior commitment I will be unable to attend the right-in-my-wheelhouse event tonight at The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford; “a screening of a critical new documentary on the future of newspapers, “On Deadline: Is Time Running Out For The Press?” followed by a panel discussion led by WNPR’s John Dankosky with some of those involved in this changing trade.” I’m going to have to settle for the airing of the film on CPTV 8 p.m. on Thursday or 10 p.m. on Friday.
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Opinion finds AG statute constitutional; Bysiewicz declares victory.

Was it really just four weeks ago that Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz was the apparent front-runner for Governor of the state of Connecticut? It seems like much longer than that. According to some wags, the long knives are out and, people are openly speculating her political career might be over. Its astonishing.

Not much to add to the news, so if you haven’t read about it, here is a synopsis:
Susan, just weeks after saying she was committed to campaign finance reform and would participate in public financing, reversed position and declared she was opting out almost in the same breath that she declared she was no longer running for Governor, but instead for Attorney General. Supporters and allies in Hartford with whom she had fought to bring about campaign finance reform went nuts. Susan got into a bit of a scrape with some reporter types while the cameras were rolling.

A blogger questioned whether Susan was technically qualified under state statutes to be Attorney General. Susan called up her friend Dick and asked him to issue a legal opinion saying of course she’s qualified to replace him. Dick’s office said they hadn’t gotten a letter from Susan or from the Secretary of State, and until they did they had nothing to say. Competitors and reporter types started calling Susan out on the specific issue of whether or not she can even be AG and, while they’re in the neighborhood, her resume is pretty thin either way. The SOTS wrote the AG a letter asking several questions, beginning with questioning the constitutionality of the statute in the first place. This is where it goes from bad to worse.

The AG issued an opinion today saying, amongst other things, that yes in fact the statute is constitutional and no, the AG cannot be issuing opinions as to whether or not Susan is qualified under the statute as a practicing attorney. The GOP state chair says that if none of the Democratic contenders, such as Susan, are willing to take the issue to court to get a summary judgement, you bet your ass he will. Meanwhile Susan tells at least one reporter that she thinks the AG agrees with her, in fact that the 15 page opinion confirms what she has been saying all along and, damn the torpedoes, she’s getting on with her candidacy.

Hands smacking foreheads all over the place. Columnist types are penning opinions and commenters on the blogs are issuing early political obits. Susan defenders fuming this is a bunch of crap, and a political ambush.

AG’s opinion here.
Christine Stuart with her story on it here.
GOP Chairman Chris Healy blogs here.
Colin McEnroe here.
And there’s just tons more out there.

Stay tuned.
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CTLocalPolitics closing up shop.

After a period of uncertainty over the future of the most widely read political blog in Connecticut, Chris Bigelow (who posted under the byline Ghengis Conn), announced on the blog that the end had come. Bigelow had departed from personally maintaining the blog at the time of the municipal elections this past November to “spend more time with his family”.

Just kidding.

GC explained that he had found his attention turning to other interests and obligations, including the fact that he was spending more of his time in western Massachussetts, and that he didn’t have the passion for the project – which was a hobby – required to do it to the level of quality that he wished.

A few days prior to Bigelow’s February 1 announcement, former GOP State Central Committee Executive Director and current Yankee Institute Policy Director Heath Fahle announced that he had accepted a gig writing opinion for the well-respected CT NewsJunkie, operated by the team of Doug Hardy and lead reporter and editor-in-chief Christine Stuart (they are husband and wife, making this something like the equivalent of a mom-and-pop shop). Fahle had been the principal contributor from the right on CTLP, and (with the departure of Bigelow) functioned as the de facto operator of CTLP along with Sarah Littman, a principal front-page contributor to CTLP from the left.

A couple of comments about this development, from a sometime participant in the evolving on-line media world. First, what Bigelow did was truly an impressive accomplishment, and at the same time an unintended consequence of a simple and important activity – wanting to share his work making political maps, which he did for his own edification and amusement (as he explained to me back at the very beginning of his blog when there were – I kid thee not – something like sixteen views on the blog’s counter). There is nothing I can add to the ocean of analysis and comment about the medium and the impact of the web log (blog) platform, the story of CTLocalpolitics speaks with the eloquence of a motion picture picture to that.

That said, I view CTNewsjunkie and sister site the New Haven Independent as natural steps beyond the personal blog that CTLocalpolitics began as and, in the end, ultimately was. CTNJ is owned and operated by people who are perhaps no more passionate about their work than their colleagues at CTLP, but happen to be professional journalists and entrepreneurs. These folks are at the leading edge of those engaged with (amongst other things) answering a big question: how one can devote the time to work in this genre and do it well, and still pay the rent and put food on the table?

So for me it is both natural and poetic that a professional political operative is moving to this venue and that this small development signals the demise of a personal project of self-expression that became something that professional journalists regarded as of nearly professional quality.

Into the space that CTLP helped create have already moved several projects in addition to CTNJ & NHI, including CTCapitolReport.com – a Drudge-like amalgamator of political headlines, and links to all manner of online sources for content political – the just-launched CTMirror.com, and a spectrum of hyper-local blogs, special interest blogs, opinion blogs… Really, the milieu defies categorization and I am incidentally a bit bemused by the meta-stocrats impotence in coming to grips with it.

The soundstage belongs for now to the performers and line producers. We’ll just have to see what happens next and, perhaps, contribute to the next scene.
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