Blogumentary

Chuck Olsen. <i><a href="http://blogumentary.org/" target="new">Blogumentary.org.</a> 65 minutes.</i>

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This playful jaunt through the blogosphere is aptly shot in an informal, first-person, all-access style. Director Chuck Olsen, an avid blogger himself, used his own blog to document the making of this film, posting scenes while it was still in production.

Olsen sees the blog movement, with its watchdog agenda, as a revolutionary means of returning the media to its “rightful owners” — the people — after more than four decades of TV-news pollution. Blogumentary spans a wide web of material, with stops at Howard Dean’s “geek-powered” campaign headquarters and the suburban patio of a right-wing blogger for Power Line.

The film examines the considerable role that blogs played in forcing Trent Lott’s resignation and, more recently, in Rathergate. Along the way, we hear from Entertainment Weekly founder-turned-blogger Jeff Jarvis, web philosopher David Weinberger, We the Media author Dan Gillmor, and front-line war correspondent Stuart Hughes.

Like Olsen’s own blog, Blogumentary is highly personal, particularly when the filmmaker turns the camera on himself in the middle of the night to capture his grief over having accidentally deleted his site. Taking a cue from William Hurt’s network anchor in Broadcast News, this foot soldier in the “pajama brigade” proves he’s not above keeping his own tears in the final cut.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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