(Originally published in Greater Democracy)

Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time reflecting on my experiences blogging the national conventions. My thoughts have meandered, but I think I’ve finally arrived at the crux of my reflections. Bloggers are not the new media’s journalists. Bloggers are the new media’s op-ed writers.

So much of what occurs in the blogosphere is repeating and emphasizing what has already been written about. Bloggers find a news story interesting that the traditional media hasn’t focused on, and keeps the story alive.

When I was covering the Republican National Convention, I found the most interesting news coming from NYC Indy Media. This is where the real new media journalism is happening. Granted a few bloggers were out on the streets covering events that the rest of the media was missing, but mostly, it seemed, they were finding places to reflect on what was going on and be the op-ed pages of the new media.

For me, another crucial part of the alternative media was Anoise radio. They had people calling in reporting from various protests about what was going on. It gave a very different perspective on what was going on than the regular broadcast media.

The important new media was TxtMob. This is a site where people could sign up for various lists to receive text messages on their cellphones. You could also review the history of the messages on the website.

All three of these reflected a key focus of this blog, the use of new technology to move to post-broadcast politics, where politics, and even the media is participatory. Anyone with a cellphone could send a text message or call into Anoise radio. Anyone with an Internet connection could post their stories at IndyMedia.

Much of the blogging boiled down to listening to the traditional media and/or the new media and commenting on. I chose to listen mostly to the new media, and between Anoise radio stream over the Internet, my cellphone constantly buzzing with new text messages, and plenty of articles to read on IndyMedia, there is a need for some way to gather and make sense of all the new information.