I would hope that someone who appoints himself and a few cronies as the web police, there would be an attempt to appear to offer some sort of sincere discussion of the web as an emerging media. Sadly, in Adam Penenberg’s Media Hack column of July 26 over at wired only manage to trash U.S. politicians web sites much in the style of US Weekly’s Fashion Police (I have not seen this column, but Penenberg cites this as an influence) That is to say, they seem to be more interested in making cutting, catty remarks for the sake of amusing each other, rather than offering any serious criticism of the way that web sites are being used by politicians, or examining how the use of web sites is changing the nature of political discourse in the current U.S. election. They even fail to take the opportunity to seriously discuss the format of political web sites in a way that I might expect from Zeldman or the other contributors at A List Apart.
Instead, these self appointed web police go for the lowest common denominator, such as:
This website perfectly captures the candidate: uninspiring, monotonous, convoluted (on John Kerry’s website)
Who is Bush’s art director, Old Glory? (on Dubya’s website)
(This) website has the aesthetics of a phone bill. (on Senate majority leader Bill Frist’s website)
This website sums up why nobody cares about South Dakota. (on Senate minority leader Tom Daschle’s website)
I’m disappointed by this level of commentary – Adam Penenberg has written some very thoughtful columns, such as the column about the Daily Kos being delisted by the John Kerry website (John Kerry and the Lost Kos). He is capable of doing better, and he has pointed out others who misuse the audience that is afforded to them through the web. I hope he returns to form soon.