Blogging the “Big Tent”

By Amy Brouillette, 8-25-08

	Caption: Photo by Amy Brouillette

Proof “new media” has come of age, scores of bloggers and citizen journalists at this year’s Democratic Convention are operating from their very own air-conditioned command center in the sprawling, 8,000-square foot media complex in LoDo, a.k.a. ”The Big Tent.” A joint, non-profit project of the Alliance for Sustainable Colorado, Daily Kos and ProgressNow, the Big Tent houses an all-green, state-of-the art new-media lounge, and a Digg stage with a host of speakers (live steaming here: http://www.ustream.tv/).

Inside blogger-central late Monday afternoon, the place is abuzz with cyberjournalists and new media folk big and small, from celeb online journalist Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, to Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, to a slew of lone citizen journalists who managed to scare up a coveted Big Tent press pass. With more than 3,000 applicants vying for 500 passes, blogger credentials were an especially difficult score—even those in the “mainstream press” with Big Tent credentials are banned from venturing into blogger turf (without an escort). Four years since a few rogue bloggers debuted at the DNC in Boston, bloggers today have become the darlings of the Convention’s media scene—refreshingly hip and energetic next to the heavy-footed old-school press, saddled by notepad and pen.

A notable and dominant addition to the scene is the suit-and-tie blogger, a creature easily mistaken for an investment banker or business mogul, and just another sign cyberjournalism has indeed gone mainstream.