As the title linked Washington Post article points out:
A coalition of activists in Canada maintains Web pages for about 500 death row inmates. Another group, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, began holding events in 1998 in which condemned inmates are patched through by speaker phone. The blogs are the latest experiment, and the activists say Evans's blog is the most novel and daring because readers can post questions.
Evans doesn't have internet access so questions sent via email are printed out and mailed to him, he then responds via mail and Virginia Simmons then enters the responses on the blog.
Of course the blog is presented in a manner to make it appear that Evans is not guilty. I'm not going to even try to guess at this point with what I've read as to that. Nor am I trying to start a discussion on the merits of the death penalty. What is interesting is the belief that by creating a blog about it that there is a greater chance to put a more "personal" face to this man on death row. That is entirely possible. It appears from some of the comments left on the blog that this is getting mixed reviews.
Something else I noticed, was this part of the article which was written on January 27, 2006:
In a world awash in personal narratives, where millions tune in to watch ordinary people do ordinary things on reality shows, the blogosphere has deemed an exchange with a man sentenced to die to be of limited interest. Fewer than 7,000 people have visited the site.
Today? The Total number of visitors since the sitemeter was added is: 49,290
I don't know when the reporter for the Washington Post checked those visit numbers but it appears from the chart that even in December it was well over 7,000 visits.
11 comments:
Press Release: For Immediate Release
McCullough: Give Me “One Chance”
WAUSEON, Ohio - The Fulton County Board of Elections has confirmed that nineteen year old Ben McCullough of Montpelier, OH, will be running unopposed in the May 2nd Democratic Primary for State Representative. This makes him the youngest Democrat to run in not just Ohio, but the United States, for state office. His district represents Fulton, as well as Williams and most of Defiance Counties. But as his four Republican opponents prepare for a heated primary election, he is not taking anything for granted.
"We have to work just as hard even without a primary," he said. "We still have plenty of work to do before May 2nd. We want to get out, talk to the people, and talk about the issues."
In a personal interview, the Wittenberg University freshman discussed some early impressions of his campaign. "I am confident right now. I feel very good about what we have done and are doing. If I didn't believe I had a chance to win, I wouldn't be doing this. But this campaign isn’t about winning or losing – it is about what we, as an area, believe we can achieve in the next 10-20 years. It’s a belief that we can do better.
"We have gotten a lot of encouragement from people in all 3 counties," McCullough continued, "and we want to represent their voice and what they have to say. We're going to stand up for the people who don't get heard enough. There are people out there who believe in this campaign - we could have just given in because it might not be considered ‘a Democratic stronghold.’ But in a democracy, you can't give in. This is our chance to shine. The people out there who have given us support: I'm going to stay in this race for them. We are fully committed, and we will be there on election night.”
The candidate pledged to represent all people. "I'm honored to represent the Democratic Party. I'm going to do my best to represent not just them, but all people in Northwest Ohio of any party. The welfare of our people goes beyond statistics and odds.”
McCullough followed his recent filing with a two-day series of events the campaign dubbed: "The Vision Mini-Tour." From Bryan to Delta, to Defiance and beyond, McCullough said the actual campaign has enlightened him as he sharpens his positions on important issues following the primary. He cited developing plans for education, the economy, and agriculture as primary goals from concerns he has received so far from the people.
Although he wishes for his campaign to rise above the negativity of partisan politics, McCullough said he is concerned that his opponents question his maturity. "All I'm asking is for one chance for you, for everyone, to come out and hear what I have to say. Come out, talk to me, and then make your decision. I'm not sure what [my opponents] mean by ‘lack of real life experience,’ because life in general is an experience. We learn new things every day regardless of age. It's a shame we have to base things on party ideology. Put that aside for a few minutes and listen. We ask our young people to keep an open mind. Why shouldn't everybody be the same way?”
McCullough closed with a final message to voters: "And about maturity: "if my opponents want to question my maturity, that's their right, but we all know people who go their whole lives without being mature. On another point, however, I'll ask the candidates: do you know where you stand on the issues? Because I know I do. Although our ideas might not be the most widely accepted or well-received at first glance, we will never compromise our views for the sake of a party or special interest. People might judge our campaign on polls on election night, but one of this campaign's main goals is to raise the level of debate. I’ll ask: what do people want to see for their children, and what do the youth want to see for themselves?”
The campaign encourages all who are interested in more details to visit BenforOhio.com.
And not only have I seen a blog for everything but now candidate blog spam?
I'd suggest next time anonymous email me the Press Release if he or she wants me to take them seriously.
:-)
It is easy to misinterpret site meters. Take mine for instance, it says that I have had a little over 13,000 visitors since I started counting. But, I know that as one of the hottest sites on the Internets, I have to have had at least 3 billion hits this week alone.
Or maybe the reporter didn't like the blog and was trying to diss it by saying it had only gotten 7,000 visitors at the end of January because he didn't expect someone like me to actually check that.
:-)
Why, I think I have as many hits a month as the national deficit has zeros.
I get about 600 visitors a week, sometimes more so I think we all can say the prison blog gets more hits than we do.
:-)
But I'm not going to jail just to get hits...
I wonder if I could get advertising money if I go to death row
Ummm somehow me4 I think there might be easier ways to make ad dollars.
:-)
Perhaps it's unique visitors that he's talking about.
I find it ineresting that the visitor count was "flat lined" from April - November. Why the sudden drop off and then reasurgence of visitor count. I guess it could be directly related to the WP article drawing recognition to the Blog but that would not explained why it went from 7000 to zero in April.
I wondered that too KK, something had to have caused the huge spike in December that then continued, probably another article out there that I didn't locate. We know it can't be the Wapo article since it came out in January.
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