February 13, 2007

Blogger Spotlight: Las Vegas Gleaner

Continuing our tour through NV, today's spotlights looks at MyDD's chosen NV blog link, the Las Vegas Gleaner, run by Hugh Jackson.

What is your full name?

Hugh Jackson

What is your age?

Middle

What’s your hometown?

Kemmerer, Wyoming

Where do you live now?

Fabulous Las Vegas

What is your educational background?

B.A., History, U of Wyoming; M.A., History, U. of Minnesota

What is your occupation?

Fourth-rate journalist/pundit. In addition to authoring the lowly Gleaner and whoring for the local MSM when they can't find a more reputable lefty to give good quote, I'm a writer and contributing editor for an online magazine, NVToday.com -- that last is basically, oh, a half-time job.

When did you first get involved in politics and why?

When I was a kid my mom ran for county assessor in Lincoln County, Wyoming in the Republican primary (She lost because the northern part of the county is dominated by Mormons and back then they didn't vote for divorced women. I suspect they still don't). After I went to colleges and stuff, I got a job reporting at the only statewide paper in Wyoming covering politicians, some of whom moved on to Congress and serve there today, albeit in profound obscurity. Sadly, I arrived at the Wyoming paper about the time Dick Cheney became Bush the Elder's Defense Secretary, so I never got a chance to cover him much -- though in 1995, when he was thinking about running for president in '96, I wrote a column describing him as the next fourth-place finisher in the Iowa caucus, and I've always hoped that a) somebody showed it to him and b) that when he saw that in his hometown paper he was, you know, hurt, him being all sensitive and everything. Why politics? Too dumb to be a scientist.

When did you start blogging and why?

I launched the Gleaner in July 2005. I started because I'm scared of Bush's flirtation with the End o' Times, alarmed at the deterioration of a once-magnificent democracy, and because ridiculing politicians full-time looked both easier and more fun than my policy analyst job with Public Citizen -- the usual reasons. Oh, and the other usual reason -- none of the grown-up media would give me a job, not even the local free weekly with sex ads in the back where I was once an allegedly overpaid (untrue!) editor who allegedly drove off advertisers (ok, that part's true). Also, when Harry Reid rose to become leader of the Senate Democrats following Daschle's defeat in 2004, it seemed like if there was one thing missing from the public discourse, it was somebody who would occasionally hammer the Great and Powerful Harry not only from the left, but from his own state.

How are blogs changing politics in your state?

We're emboldening the enemy.

What's your favorite most unsung specific example of a blogger affecting a political figure, organization, philosophy, or movement?

Um, aren't we past that question? I mean, isn't that like asking for a favorite example of, oh, a weekly news magazine or a TV news show affecting a political figure etc.? Words and pictures and stuff are published on the internets now, and it's just another piece of the media circus, sometimes it'll matter, sometimes it won't.

Tomorrow our spotlight makes a right turn and interviews Todd Zuccato of Silver State Libertarian Leanings.

Posted by Conn Carroll at February 13, 2007 01:09 PM