The New Mexican is live blogging Santa Fe election day

Visited the "live blog" link provided in this introspective story about how the people parading under the banner "New Mexico Independent" like to pat themselves on the back for what they do. Didn't find much.

The phrase "live blog" appeared no less than 37 times on the page behind the link. That's almost like what we call "keyword stuffing." Plenty for the machines to read, not much of interest to the readers. Each entry starts with a lede about what the NMI reporter is doing... live blogging. None of the ledes contains substantive information about what the legislature is doing. We have to play journalist and sort through the reporters reports about their reports to find a clue, which we could just as easily get from reading a machine transcript of the dialogue on the Senate or House floor -- sans timestamps and bold-face repetitions of the reporters names, ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

The reporters name appeared in bold print several dozen times. Lots of time stamps to confuse the eye. Plenty of irrelevant chit-chat. Not much informed summary of events. Lots of complaints about being bored, nothing going on... More or less evidence of untrained journalists wandering around spending donors money, talking about their failure to use available resources (don't have "copies" of bills -- they're posted on line and the state has an anti-donation law. Who says you get a free copy when everybody else pays 50cents a page?)

2:21
Matt Reichbach (NMI-Sen):
We don't have copies of the bills yet.
Monday March 1, 2010 2:21 Matt Reichbach (NMI-Sen)
2:21
Matt Reichbach (NMI-Sen):
But I did get a copy of Mason's Manual of Legislative Procedure from Claus. Now I have something to read.
Monday March 1, 2010 2:21 Matt Reichbach (NMI-Sen)
2:24
Matt Reichbach (NMI-Sen):
The Table of Contents is about 30 pages long in Mason's. Wow.
Monday March 1, 2010 2:24 Matt Reichbach (NMI-Sen)
2:24
Matt Reichbach (NMI-H):
I'm in the Senate, by the way.
Monday March 1, 2010 2:24 Matt Reichbach (NMI-H)
2:25
Matt Reichbach (NMI-H):
I'm in the House, I meant.



The New Mexico not-so-independent staff's chilly refusal to respond to user comments demonstrates a thinly veiled contempt for outsiders. Most likely a desperate attempt to close the circle before public input suggests some better way to spend donors dollars.

Yee-ha! Live Blog!

Some actual information that helps voters make choices and participate in elections would be more useful -- maybe a compiled list of candidate histories and backgrounds along with campaign contributions.

how about links and maps to polling places?

I visited the new mexican's live blog -- someone asked a question four hours ago about voter rules related to their old address location. Reporter Tom Sharpe didn't answer.


Does the New Mexico Out-of-State-Politically-Motivated-Funder-Dependant like live blogs because they inform and attract people from outside the usual political circles to become interested in public affairs, or because they appeal to political insiders, win the praise of self-important journalists and are finished when you go home at the end of the day so you don't have to worry about petty details such as correcting name, address and contact information?




------------------------------------------------------EDIT---(later)---------------------------------------
Oh, WAIT -- theres the live blog. It's the big dark-colored square with low-contrast text that looks like an ad and loads two minutes after the page loads. Stupid me for not being an insider. I forgot the purpose of media is to make people feel like they're not part of the club!

Look's like "Live Blog" to the Santa Fe New Mexican means innovator Mike Cosgrove, who tucked his tail and slinked back to his cubicle after Rob Dean quashed his newsroom reform plan that would've ended the beat system, posted 17 comments that revealed little information and mostly took readers down a technological dark hole to find information that could've been exposed in plain HTML on the surface of the Web page.

Promoted a story by Tom Sharpe, said "hello" in a pretentious officious tone, said "OK" in one post, answered a question that appeared in the Disqus comments so the answer was not alongside hte question. And where is the once hard-working city reporter Henry Lopez, who know lives on the dole as an untouchable Web editor -- was he among the budget-cut layoffs during the past two years or does he just lurk in the shadows, never producing any real content?

I'll bet some overpaid admin staffer earned about a week's pay for the decision to use the demand/media liveblog system while Web staffers left in frustration because their creative efforts were refused by the Oldest Newspaper West of the Mississippi. Way to support local initiative, Robin Martin and Geani Sahn. Just what we need -- brain drain in Santa Fe while you toss local advertisers revenue away on worthless products from the Silicon Valley.

Now, Cosgroves "live-blog" commentary include this jewel in a next-minute response to a visitor's question about voting rules:
"Ti, contact the City Clerk's Office to find out if you can vote.
City staff will be available to answer questions or provide additional information at the City Clerk’s Office, 200 Lincoln Ave., or by phone all day today at 955-6326, 955-6519, 955-6520 or 955-6521."

Kul. Wai Kuul. Whadya think we are, somekind of news service er sumpthin' suppos to ansa yo kwestuns about public policy? Call the guvmn't if you wants answers. I'm not at my desk. I'm out live blogging! eeeh-ha! Who me, phone the city for an answer? Heck no.

The reader later posted his own answer to his own question, six minutes after he asked Cosgrove. The reader did not say whether he called city hall as the New Mexican's assistant managing editor had suggested, though he was more courteous than this commentator, who wishes all these media outlets would kindly punch the self-destruct button so those of us who care to involve more than the chosen few could get some work done above the roar of stupendous emptiness echoing from the main-stream and so-called "new" media in this town. The senior New Mexican newsroom staffer demonstrated no knowledge of New Mexico voting law.
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-----------------------------------EDIT NUMBER 2---- (later than before)-------------------------------

OMG!!!! I almost had a heart attack. I left my speakers on and there was a loud sound. It was the New Mexican's demand/MEDIA "live blog" system.

"The event is going on standby."

Now there is some news I can use....


BTW - I "live blogged" using the comments here and it didn't take a fanci pay-as-you-go system to make it possible. I could do even better with a few lines of open source PHP code but that sort of initiative is distinctly unwelcome among New Mexico's snobbish insider "progressive" press corps.