Bloggers I’ve met before and saw again at BlogNashville: Robin Burk, BlogNashville organizer and Media Bloggers Association President Robert Cox, Bill Roggio, (who also created Easongate.com), and Chris Nolan.
Bloggers and journalists I met: Rebecca MacKinnon, Bill Hobbs, Glenn Reynolds, J.D. Lasica, Linda Seebach, M. Roboto, Blake Wylie, Stan Brown, Trey Jackson, Tim Schmoyer, Leonard Witt, Chris Muir, Doug Petch, B.L. Ochman, Eric Janssen, and USMC_Vet.
Non- or former bloggers: Dr. Sybril Bennett, Executive Director of the New Century Journalism program, and Dr. Kirk Johnson, Heritage Foundation.
Bloggers and others who attended my faith-based blogging session: Mark Tapscott, Ed Cone, Henry Copeland, Donald Sensing, Sean Hackbarth (met at CPAC), Matt Sheffield, who also blogs at Ratherbiased.com (met at DC Blogger Meet-up), Paul Chenoweth, Dale Lature, Ian Schwartz, Eric Scheie, Cecelia Henderson, Matthew Paul Turner, and “Pink Kitty.” There were many others at the session that I didn’t meet and names I can’t remember. If I’ve left you out, please let me know.
What bloggers said about the faith-based session:
Eric Scheie: “I have to say there’s more feeling in this room right now than in any other panel I’ve experienced so far…It’s very exciting to see the independence of thought, the intelligence, and the imagination of people so often stereotyped as Bible thumping bigots….Liveliness aside, I was quite struck by the civility and lack of contentiousness at this panel, despite obvious and profound disagreement.”
Ed Cone: “Upstairs in the Vince Gill room for faith blogging, there was a lot of respect. LaShawn Barber did a nice job of keeping it open, even though she entered with some apprehension…Lots of folks took the floor….It was a coming together, and it really worked.”
I didn’t expect people to leave the session necessarily agreeing with me. Civility was what I hoped for, and that’s what I got. 
If you haven’t OD’d on BlogNashville yet, you can read what others are saying about the conference in general here.
A few months ago I complained that the same (white male) bloggers were being invited to do cable TV news interviews and speak at these conferences, then suddenly I was appearing on MSNBC and speaking at conferences.
I was actually thinking out loud when I wrote those things, but for whatever reason people noticed I was here, I’m glad. I admit that I want to be well-known in the blogosphere and a frequent conference speaker. I’ve been invited to speak at BlogHerCon in July, organized by Chris Nolan (in the photo).
I will attempt to post the rest of my photos on Flickr today, so stay tuned for updates. BlogNashville was a success, and I’m so glad Bob Cox invited me. Some bloggers aren’t interested in meeting other bloggers, but seeing them face to face and holding a verbal conversation adds another dimension to what I call “e-relationships.”
BlogNashville will go down in the history-of-the-blogosphere books as one of the defining moments of the revolutionary new medium known as blogging.
Related posts:
Update: Pictures (not mine yet)!
Oh my goodness. Sitting beside me is Bill Roggio. It looks like we’re falling asleep, but we’re not. These photos have captions. Very helpful.
Update II: I don’t know how I forgot about the lovely Andi of Andi’s World. She also attended the faith-based blogging session.
Credit for organizing BlogHerCon goes to Elisa Camahort and Lisa Stone.
Scroll down for an update on my faith-based blogging session.
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There are so many nerds in this room…
I’m in a session about money. Henry Copeland of Blogads is talking about money and blogs, and the discussion is raging. Henry touched on the uniqueness of blogging, the kind that will attract advertisers. Part of the uniqueness is the community and conversation that takes place on blogs as opposed to the one way flow of information at online news sites.
Newsday is covering BlogNashville:
Right now, more than 8 million people write blogs, said Bob Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association. Blogs, short for Web logs, are running commentaries on whatever their authors are interested in. Content often focuses on politics or media criticism and usually includes feedback from readers.Participants such as Shelley Henderson said they want to expand their research capabilities to strengthen their commentaries. Henderson, of Los Angeles, dedicates her blog to keeping the Internet unregulated.
Blake Wylie of Nashville was among the participants who took exception to criticisms from politicians and mainstream media pundits that their work is often inaccurate…Wylie said bloggers often provide links to let readers go directly to their sources of information….Hobbs noted that blogs entries are corrected more thoroughly and prominently than in other forms of media.
“We write and then our readers edit us,” Hobbs said.
While bloggers dissect, analyze, and criticize journalists, blog readers do the same thing to bloggers.
The sessions so far are very well-done. I’m now in the miliblogging session with Robin Burk leading. I gave my big speech last Saturday, so I don’t plan on doing a lot of talking in my session. I’ll give a brief overview of what I do and what I think is important about faith-based blogging, then I’ll throw questions out for the audience.
Want to watch the events live?
I posted this photo of Chris Muir (right) so you could see what he looks like.
Update (3:00 p.m.): It is finished! I’ll update later and let you know how the faith-based blogging session went. Overall, it was positive!
Read the latest at BlogNashville.
Update II (5/8 @ 7:30 a.m.): I was nervous about the session for nothing. It began right after lunch, and I arrived with a few minutes to spare. I didn’t know what to expect or how many people would attend. I was pleased to see the room filling up. After a brief introduction, I asked maybe one or two questions about faith-based blogging in general to get the ball rolling, and the audience took it from there.
As an evangelical Christian, I’m all too aware of the associated negative stereotypes. But my prayers were answered. Everyone was civil and very interested in this topic. Involved in the discussion were non-evangelicals, a Jew, and someone who may be a theist. I didn’t poll the audience about their faith because I didn’t want to put anyone on the spot. I may have asked individuals, though.
We talked about how bloggers blog about their faith. Some Christians frequently write about their personal relationship with Christ; others prefer not to. In this same context, we talked about the language we use that others may consider exclusive. I call this “spiritual language.” For instance, some readers will feel excluded when I make a reference to “believers” when writing about fellow Christians. I said that Christianity itself is exclusive, but so are other religions or philosophical belief systems. People tend to forget that when criticizing Christianity.
This is what I mean by “exclusive.” Christ said that no one can come to the Father (go to heaven) without believing in him. He says he is the way, the truth, and the life, and this is what Christians believe. One of the many beautiful aspects of the faith is that God calls all, in a sense. We believe what the Bible teaches, that God foreknew who he was going to save. The call to repentance is made to all people, but only those who would be saved will be saved. That is why Christians are called to share the Gospel with all men because we don’t know who his elect people are, and neither does anyone else.
In terms of faith and blogging, someone talked about the need to disassociate faith, in this case, Christianity, from a particular political party. We have to be sure our faith sets the tone for our politics and not the other way around. Unfortunately, this subject wasn’t fleshed out. It is probably the most relevant issue facing faith bloggers who write about politics, such as yours truly.
Someone mentioned the need to be civil to one another, which should go without saying but often needs to be said. Tomorrow I’ll blog more about the session and BlogNashville in general. I scheduled a flight around noon so I could sleep in, so I’m still at the hotel doing what I do: blogging.
Filed under: BlogNashville, Pictures
After a bumpy flight on a commuter plane, I’m here. Although my clock reads 1:41 p.m., it’s 12:41 in Nashville (Why is La Shawn in Nashville?). The room is very nice and the wireless Internet access is working.
I’ve already met two bloggers. Rebecca MacKinnon and I shared a shuttle to the hotel from the airport, and Tom from Scared Monkeys greeted us in the lobby. By the way, Rebecca, a former CNN employee, was an integral part of the Eason Jordan scandal.
I’m trying to decide whether I want to head over to Belmont University now and meet everyone or wait until tonight when the blogging and journalism discussion starts. Decisions, decisions. I want to ask Glenn Reynolds why he hasn’t linked to LBC in awhile. Just kidding. Sort of.
Side note: A few readers have complained that images on the blog have been replaced by my host’s disabled hotlinking notification (big black boxes). I see the images just fine. All I can tell you is to clear your cache and refresh your browser. That might help.
I’ll see you in a bit…
Update (4:52 p.m. CST): Do you guys know about Pajamas Media? Glenn Reynolds, Roger Simon and Charles Johnson (Little Green Footballs) are putting together a news service by bloggers. As newspaper circulation is going down, this new media venture seems like an innovative way to make a run for their dwindling audience.
The bloggers are on Kudlow & Company right now. The plan is to draw advertisers to blogs, which will help lower-traffic bloggers build an audience. I sent Roger an e-mail a few days ago to join, and he wrote back and said I was already signed up. Cool. I’m still learning about this, so I don’t have a lot of informaton to give you. Michelle Malkin blogged about it this week.
I think bloggers can still sign up.
Update II (12:02 a.m.): Bloggers, bloggers everywhere! Check out The Political Teen’s (who is here, by the way) video of the Kudlow & Company segment.
I posed for pictures with Glenn (left). He’s like a rock star! Everybody was flocking around him, and no matter how much I tried to resist (I’m no groupie), I was drawn inside the circle. I’m weak.
I took a photo with Chris Muir, too. He put me in one of his strips several months ago.
It’s surreal meeting bloggers face to face. You must try it sometime. One of the disadvantages of having a photo of yourself on a blog is that people know who you are, but you have no idea who they are. From across the room strangers were smiling and waving and calling my name. “Hello? Do I know you?”
I am becoming conference queen.
Update: December 6, 2005: Many of you are landing here from searches on “Faith Shawn.” Who is Faith Shawn? 
Oh, well. While you’re here, check out this blog and a new one I just started called Fantasy Fiction for Christians.
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I am an evangelical Christian who’ll lead a discussion on “faith-based blogging” at BlogNashville next week with people who probably won’t be evangelical Christians. In fact, I suspect I’ll be only one of two evangelicals there, so I have to figure out how to discuss this topic with a diverse audience.
The New York Times published an article called Faithful Track Questions, Answers and Minutiae on Blogs (reg. req.), featuring blogs like Evangelical Outpost, AidelMaidel (Jewish) and Feminist Mormon Housewives. I doubt the range of people will be as broad at BlogNashville, but I need to come up with a series of general questions to get the ball rolling and avoid questions about theological differences.
My perspective: I blog mostly about politics, although I’m quite open about my faith. I am a faith-blogger, and I assume bloggers of other religious faiths would say the same about themselves. Or would they?
I solicit your help in formulating questions for discussion. A few I have in mind:
- What is a faith-based blogger? How is the term defined?
- Is faith-blogging a phenomenon of Christian bloggers?
- Discuss the GodBlogCon in October. Is it too exclusive? What do you think it will accomplish?
That’s as far as I’ve gotten. I’m working on my presentation for a different conference this week, so I’ll have more to say about this one next week. In the meantime, I look forward to your ideas.
Addendum: In response to a commenter, I posted this: “I want the discussion to be audience-driven rather than La Shawn-driven. I’ve never led a discussion before, so I’m trying to come up with thought-provoking questions that will get people talking.”
I’ve read helpful suggestions so far. Keep ‘em coming!
