Well, this morning’s panel that I was on went really well, I felt. It was on the evolution of the blogosphere, and we had miraculously low levels of people who get up to ask questions and instead go on rants about this issue or that. Everyone basically stayed on-topic. The issues we discussed were whether or not there was a blog “establishment” now, how it had the same hierarchical and power issues of the mainstream media, how to increase diversity, and whether or not the term “blogger” should still apply considering how many different ways blogs are used. (My answer: yes. I didn’t say this out loud but it’s in my notes that the term “blog” reminds me of the term “punk”—it’s ambiguity is a strength if you know how to use it.) I tried to talk up the already existing diversity in the blogosphere and remind the audience that it’s a matter of seeing what’s already there.

Other panels I attended: Blogs vs. the mainstream media (which Jill from Feministe was on) and one about online feminist activism. The first panel was kind of a trainwreck in terms of audience members forgetting to ask questions and advance the discussion. A lot of people seemed really intent on dogpiling Jay Carney more than anything, which is hard to blame them for, but it got tedious. Jill was awesome, made some extremely interesting points about how the left blogs don’t really want to destroy the media but to pressure journalists to do their jobs. Credit to Ari Melber for handling the impossible task of pushing people to ask questions instead of ranting at the panelists. The second panel was fun and interesting. Jessica from Feministing moderated it, and the discussion with the audience centered mostly around how to get institutional activists and bloggers talking more. It was an interesting thing to think about, because while I feel warmly about a lot of feminist organizations, it occurred to me that I don’t really engage with them all that often, considering the fact that I’m a prominent blogger. The organizations represented on the panel were the Real Hot 100, NOW, MomsRising, and the Pro-Choice Public Education Project. All great organizations and well worth checking out.

Tonight: A dinner with Change to Win. Tomorrow: A panel on blogging while female and the Media Matters reception. People met: Too numerous to even start to list and be fair about it, but including Pam Spaulding! People I will hopefully be meeting if all things go well in the next day and a half: Lauren from Faux Real and Jesse Taylor from a blog you may have heard of called Pandagon.