A “thank you” to the Virginian-Pilot

I have been going back-and-forth with a member of the blogging community about the reach of the blogging community.

My friend, who shall remain nameless, insists that blogs have very little impact. She frequently cites the Virginian-Pilot, with its daily circulation in the hundreds of thousands, as having greater impact than blogs who merely reach a couple thousand at best (on a good day).

Now, this is assuming that folks who are reading the paper, are reading particular portions of the paper (such as the Hampton Roads section where local and state politics is dished-out – and my favorite section), and are willing to act upon it.

I, however, argue that its not size that matters, but the quality (an argument I have grown accustomed to making).

I look at who is reading the blog and what type of activity and conversation it generates.

Here’s an example.

On July 20, Brian Kirwin picked right up on the fact the Deeds’ campaign made a silly mistake regarding our bridge and tunnel problem here.

The Deeds’ camp said that congestion at the “Chesapeake Bridge Tunnel” needed to be eased.

Anyone who lives here realizes that this is a ridiculous statement – the closest time that thing gets congested is when they’re running a half-marathon on it.

What Deeds meant to say was “Ease congestion at the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel”, which, later in the day, they corrected on their web site.

Only Brian wrote about this.

Yet, what should appear two days later in the Virginian-Pilot editorial section but this little missive:

“Democrat Creigh Deeds has already made good on one campaign promise. His news release Monday vowed to “ease congestion on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.”

Consider it done.”

Now, there was no credit given to Brian in the editorial that his post was the spark-of-genius that broke the editorial staffs’ writers-block, but there doesn’t need to be.

For us, we know that what we do here is to share information and help start conversations.

Clearly, in this case, we did our job.

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About the author

JR Hoeft

Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.