March 16, 2006
BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: Bloggin' And Hobbs
Today the Blogometer talks to TN-based conservative Bill Hobbs, who writes BillHobbs.com, which is on temporary hiatus.
What is your full name?
William Howard Hobbs
What is your age?
41
Where did you grow up?
Delaware County, PA, a suburb of Philadelphia.
Where do you live now?
Franklin, TN, a suburb of Nashville.
What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?
I currently work in the public relations office of a private university in Nashville. I served as a press assistant for mayoral candidate Jay West during the final four months of the 1999 Nashville mayoral campaign until the primary. He came in third. My first career was as a newspaper journalist -- I have worked for, in order, the Abilene (Texas) Reporter-News, The Lubbock (Texas) Avalanche-Journal, the Clarksville (Tenn.) Leaf-Chronicle, the Nashville Business Journal, and the Nashville Tennessean, all of that as a reporter covering crime and courts, general assignments, and a variety of business beats. From 1994-1997 I worked as a writer and then managing editor of a monthly country music magazine, and from 1993-2000 I also freelanced for a variety of publications including industrial trades, daily newspapers and business magazines. For a few months in 2001 I worked for a now-defunct Tennessee policy think tank.
I wrote a weekly column from January 2001 to May 2002 on business, public policy and economic issues for Nashville City Paper, and made numerous radio and television appearances in connection with the column. I currently do freelance corporate blog consulting for several blue-chip clients, and have edited two business books.
When did you start blogging and why?
November 2000. I started my blog as an adjunct to my City Paper column, where I could provide my column readers with more information, links to documents I mentioned in the column, longer analysis, etc. After the column ended in May 2002, I simple kept writing the blog. Also, from March through May of 2002 I wrote a satirical blog, Osama's Bin Bloggin.
What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?
I've done extensive original journalism and research-based commentary on Tennessee's tax and budget situation that has helped influence MSM coverage in a more accurate direction, and also helped put the Taxpayers Bill of Rights firmly on the political radar screen in Tennessee, so that would have to be my favorite overall focus on my blog. I also write about religion, the war, the media and much more. Being an ex-journalist, or should I say a reformed journalist, I love examining media bias and doing media crit. In that vein, my favorite post would be this one, in which I took a Maureen Dowd column and added a few helpful hyperlinks to help Ms. Dowd make her points more effectively.
Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?
Until a couple months ago, I would post 8-12 times per day, ranging from short items to longer, in-depth pieces that took a lot of time to research and compile. Late in 2005 I scaled back somewhat, doing fewer long pieces and more simple linking to things in the press and the blogosphere that I think my readers should read. On Jan. 10 I put my blog on hiatus thanks to a crushing work and freelance load and an ongoing medical-crisis situation in my family, and also to reevaluate where I go from here. I do expect to resume blogging at some point, and am in the beginning stages of launching a multi-author site, TennesseeVoices.com, focused on Tennessee politics, and perhaps a couple other sites. There is a very healthy Tennessee political blogosphere now with several other bloggers now also doing the same kind of work that I had done and, as my goal is to have a large number of skilled volunteer blog-journalists doing the kind of in-depth reporting and analysis that the Tennessee MSM does less and less of, I'm happy to see others doing the kind of daily blogging that I had been doing.
Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?
Captain's Quarters is awesome, as are the Powerline guys. At the Tennessee level, it would be Bob Krumm and Blake Wylie of the Nashville Files blog, and Jeff Cornwall of The Entrepreneurial Mind. My favorite non-political blogger would be Tod Bolsinger of It Takes a Church and Terry Heaton's Pomo Blog, where he writes about post-modern media.
Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?
It used to be George Will, but I rarely read him any more. Now it's Krauthammer. And Ledeen. And Mark Steyn. And David Warren. And Victor Davis Hanson.
What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?
I don't watch TV news very much. Too shallow and repetitive. Plus, my son is usually watching "Barney" or "Jay Jay the Jet Plane."
What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?
Tennessean.com, NYTimes.com, NashvilleCityPaper.com, WashingtonPost.com, Google News (which leads me to all kinds of sources from all over the world).
What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?
Instapundit, Powerline, Captains Quarters, Nashville Is Talking, Donald Sensing , Thunder 6 and Dr. Jeff Cornwall's The Entrepreneurial Mind, which I helped him start.
How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?
It's part of my job to scan the local papers every day, but most of my "newspaper" reading is online.
How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?
Newspapers and old media will become more blogcentric, and independent bloggers acting as journalists will increasingly impact MSM coverage. I write often about the interplay of blogs and media, and the rise of what I call "collaborative peer-reviewed journalism." Some of those posts are here, here and here.
My interest in the interplay of blogs and media is what led me to help organize the May 2005 BlogNashville conference at Belmont University in Nashville. ( www.blognashville.org ). About 300 bloggers and new-media people came, including Glenn Reynolds, Dan Gillmor, J.D. Lasica, Hoder, Rebecca McKinnon, Ed Cone, Mark Tapscott, Henry Copeland, Robin Burk, Dave Winer, LaShawn Barber, Robert Cox, Linda Seebach, Mark Glaser and many more.
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