News of the Massachusetts Blogosphere

"What the Bloggers are Saying," is the title of a sidebar to the cover story about Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick in this week's Valley Advocate (also The Springfield Advocate). These papers cover the cities and towns of the Connecticut River valley from Vermont to the Connecticut border.

Staff writer Andrew Varnon spotted a trend that has converged with the Patrick campaign: "In the past year," he writes, "Massachusetts has developed its own miniblogosphere. It is still rather nascent, but there is a core group of bloggers emerging who are concerned with state politics. And to these new bloggers, Deval Patrick has almost a 'rock star' status. All of them are talking about him."

This is the first time, to my knowledge, that a newspaper has reported on the existence of the informal network of MA political bloggers. We sprouted up independently, but eventually discovered each other. We often discuss and link to interesting posts on each others blogs -- and in so doing we have built a considerable statewide readership. This trend will continue as we write about the governor's race. This will be important in part because, as Deval Patrick learned when he made his recent campaign swing through western Massachusetts, The Berkshire Eagle, the largest paper in the region has a policy of not covering the race until this November. (I wonder if Eagle readers know about that? I wonder if they would think its a good idea?)

The North Adams Transcript, however, thought someone running for governor and visiting their corner of the state was worthy of a story. So did blogger Michael Wilcox. So did blogger Noho-missives.

Kudos to The Valley Advocate for a fair and interesting profile of Deval Patrick and his campaign -- and for being the first to report on the MA political bloggers.