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Journalist’s TradeScuttlebutt and Speculation Fill a Political WeblogA newspaper columnist’s blog becomes a must-read on the campaign trail.By Daniel WeintraubAfter 20 years writing about politicsand public policy to somelocal note but no national acclaim,I managed to become almostfamous this year—by dispensing speculationand instant analysis on theInternet and punditry on cable television.I owe it all to the California recalland to my Weblog.When I started the Weblog—knownas the California Insider—I had no ideathat the attempt to remove GovernorGray Davis from office would take rootand evolve into the biggest politicalstory of the year. Or that the Internetgenre known commonly as the blogwould come to play such a prominentrole in the coverage.For the uninitiated, a blog is anonline journal of usuallyshort, spontaneous itemsupdated frequently asevents develop. Manyblogs are personal diariesread only by the author’sfamily and close friends.Even the more prominentbloggers are usuallynonjournalists who link toprinted stories and critiquethem on their owntime. Others are createdand updated by collegeprofessors or experts intheir fields.Blogs, then, representa democratization of journalism,or at least opinionjournalism, because theyallow anybody, just aboutanywhere, to publishthemselves and gain readersin relation to their talent,their relevance and,ultimately, their accuracy,regardless of their credentials.Breaking News on My BlogI was breaking new ground by combiningfull-time journalism as a three-timesa-weekcolumnist for The SacramentoBee and a full-time blog that I updatedconstantly from anywhere I had accessto the Internet—from my desk, home,campaign bus, and other unpredictablelocations. When I wrote for theCalifornia Insider, I commented on thenews and broke some, too.It was a perfect marriage of mediumand message. The recall was a fastmovingstory from the start, first withthe signature count and then the watchto see which candidates would file torun. The final, 60-day sprint to ElectionDay was filled with unexpected twistsand turns that I could report and thenanalyze on my blog 18 hours or morebefore they would appear in the printversion of our newspaper. When I beganthe blog in early April, it was readby a few hundred people each day,mainly Capitol staff, lobbyists, politicalconsultants, and colleagues in the presscorps. By the end of the campaign, theblog was getting nearly 20,000 pageviews a day.Some readers told me they wouldcheck the site eight or 10 times a day tosee if anything was breaking on thestory. Those readers included peoplefrom all over the world and many editorsin newsrooms from Los Angeles toNew York. One day, late in the campaignwhen I was riding on the ArnoldSchwarzenegger bus tour, a reporterfor another paper approached me afterhis editor had read an item I’dposted a few minutes earlier,called him, and asked him tocheck it out.Ironically, the success of theblog was based on skills I’d longshunned as a journalist. In my 20years as a beat reporter, I hateddaily news, or at least the kindgenerated by politicians, whichso often seemed artificial andoften self-serving. Rather thanstaffing press conferences andsitting through staged committeehearings, I preferred enterprisestories and analysis. Now Ifound myself with a self-imposeddeadline every minute, and I wasfiling items based not just on myreporting but also on press releases,campaign commercials,fundraising reports, and otherroutine developments.While as a columnist I preferpolicy to politics, my blog wasfilled with political scuttlebuttand speculation, the latest pollsand observations on who was up58 Nieman Reports / Winter 2003