Kleiman From Varying Perspectives (#5)

Mark Kleiman’s blog, The Reality-Based Community, focuses on a variety of topics. The latest post is called the “Pants-on-fire award: Pelosi wants to put you in jail for not buying health insurance,” and as the title infers, the content deals with the House’s healthcare plan. The post is no more than another opinion-based commentary on the work of other bloggers and the statements of politicians.

Regular visitors to Kleiman’s site have come to expect posts like this. Kleiman assumes his readers are regulars and does not bother to mention full names of the people he refers to. He merely calls them by their last names, which suggests that he’s writing for an informed audience. The first part of the post says “I heard one of Boehner’s Buffoons yelling.” Only those who are closely following the healthcare debate would know that Kleiman is referring to House Minority Leader John Boehner. This post is very typical Kleiman, short and critical of other bloggers and politicians. Kleiman chastises Dave Camp, Ann Althouse, and Glenn Reynolds for posting and linking to a press release by Camp entitled “PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail.” Kleiman blames all three for spreading lies and not bothering to read the press release. I believe a regular visitor to the site would be pleased with Kleiman’s criticism and would already be familiar with the people he is talking about. These visitors are the ones that are mostly likely to understand Kleiman’s posts and return to the site regularly.

First-time visitors to Kleiman’s site, that are interested in the House’s healthcare plan, would most likely not find much value in this post. The post is definitely not news and merely features Kleiman’s opinion. Kleiman does address some of the concerns of the Republican party, but he does so in very critical way. Two of the bloggers he refers to are lawyers and because of this Kleiman concludes that “it’s hard to imagine that any of them might be sincere.” He labels one of John Boehner’s colleagues a “buffoon” and claims that none of the people he mentions are credible. Thus for a visitor looking for healthcare news, there is not much substance in Kleiman’s post. It is more opinion and name-calling than any real insight on the subject. I do not believe a visitor looking for healthcare information would return to Kleiman’s site unless they liked having their own anti-republican ideals affirmed or weren't concerned with real news content.

First-time visitors to Kleiman's site would most likely look at the "Pants-on-fire award" story and scroll down to see if the other posts were similar in nature. The majority of Kleiman's recent posts are concerned with government issues, though the gigantic sidebar on the left of the site lists topics ranging from art and urbanism to Walmart and religion. I believe most visitors would want to figure out who Kleiman is and might be intrigued by the advertisement on the site for his recent book. New visitors might click on this advertisement or visit the "about us" section. Visitors looking for hardcore news would turn up their noses at Kleiman's site and would not return. Visitors interested in opinions and commentary might like Kleiman's site, especially once they learn that he is a professor of public policy at the UCLA School of Public Affairs. His posts are not designed for everyone and are aimed at readers who like reading opinions and are familiar with others in the blogosphere. These visitors are more likely to return to Kleiman's site.

Mark Kleiman's Blog- Nothing Has Changed

Michael Massing listed Mark Kleiman’s blog “The Reality Based Community” as one of his picks for good journalistic work online. Unfortunately the only thing Massing says about it is “on drug policy, there's The Reality-Based Community, by UCLA professor Mark Kleiman.” Massing never discusses why he believes Kleiman’s blog is an example of good journalism. He merely mentions it in passing in his article “The News About the Internet."

In going back to my first post about Kleiman’s site, I see that I felt most of the blogs were very opinion-based and leaned to the left of the political scale. I also wrote that there was not much original reporting happening on the site. Unfortunately, not much has changed over the last month and some of Kleiman’s recent posts have been laughable. The most recent post, “Stay Classy, San Antonio,” isn’t even a blog or a real commentary. It’s just a picture of an ad for a business seminar and an embedded video. The goal of this post is to poke fun at the seminar’s lineup of people, which includes George W. Bush. In addition, most of the posts still relate back to reporting done by traditional media, eg. newspapers and television. However, some of the posts are commentary on fellow bloggers.

I’m not sure what Massing was referring to when he said that Kleiman’s blog discusses “drug policy.” Recently, the posts have been all over the place from the traditions of the Whigs to the energy industry. The only posts that relate to drug policy are one on medical cannabis and one a month ago that discusses some of the health care bill issues. Most of the posts are related to current events but there is not a specific focus on drug policy.

Overall my opinions of the blog have not changed from my initial viewpoint. I keep crossing my fingers that one of these posts will have some exciting new information but it’s not looking good.