I've been a Gather member since September of 2006. I joined shortly after CNN advertised Gather along with the subject of illegal immigration. Since I was recently invloved in an ICE investegation concerning a possible Human Trafficking situation, I saw Gather as the perfect place to tell my story as well as to show how Human Trafficking and illegal immigration are often connected.
Of course when I joined, I noticed right off the bat that there were illegal immigration articles all over the place, both on the pro and anti-illegal immigrants sides of the issue. Then as time passed, the pro-illegal advocates seemed to drop from the radar screen. Then as the topic became hot once again, a whole new crop of pro-illegals came on to the scene out of the blue. Neither my contacts or I had ever heard of these people. Of course as the issue died out again, these people faded away just as the first wave did.
As the Immigration Reform Bill was before the Senate a couple of weeks ago and was stalled, of course suddenly here comes the third wave of pro-illegal Gatherites. As with the second wave, neither my contacts or myself had ever heard of any of these people.
I was just discussing this issue with my friend Todd L, and it seems that it isn't just the illegal immigrant advocates who are suspect. While watching one of the Presidential debates, one of the journalists posed this question " I have a question that was sent to be via e-mail from one of our Gather.com bloggers..........." Are News organations paying people to blog on Gather ? hmmm, sure seems so.
Then Todd gave me the example of a debate that he saw on FOXX, and one of the people involved in the debate could be e-mailed at Gather.com
Seriously, are Political Parties Press organizations paying people to blog here in an attempt to sway public opinion? Or as Todd brought out.....Is Gather perhaps creating these fictitious acounts to stirr the pot just when a topic is hot in the news so they get more hits on their website?
Personally, I believe it's a little of both. What are your thoughts ?
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Comments: 74
Controversy begats more posts and more members. In addition, they may get publicity on CNN or FoxNews etc!
Bush is willing to even buy votes for his new improved version, so for someone to do it to a nationally recognized blog is not only probable but smart tactics.
The mexican govt and big business have deep pockets so their persuasions probably invade many more areas. Thanks
A television station in New Hampshire (WMUR-TV) ran a contest looking for 15 'bloggers' to blog live on Gather during the recent Democratic and Republican debates in N.H.
I don't remember if they were compensated (I don't think so), but each blogger attended the event(s) live and were a part of the press contingent (sort of).
You can read more about it HERE, and in the wmur.gather.com group.
Anyway.... I didn't think people were paid to advocate illegal immigrants because I thought I had seen a variety of articles from a large group of different members. I didn't think there was any connection. But now that you pointed out, I started to doubt. I still don't have an opinion either way - just because I can't prove either way. But I think anything is possible.
Darcey D.
Whether any paid blogger belongs to and posts to these groups I do not know, but I would not be surprised to find out that most of the candidates have campaign staffers who duties include at least monitoring Internet sites for references to their candidate that appear on the Internet. Quite truthfully, I would suspect the competency of any candidate who did not monitor the Internet for such references. In addition to outright anti and negative blogs it would be quite easy to post material to the Internet that was supposedly coming from a candidate or was presented on representing a candidate's views when in fact neither was true. The candidate who does not want to be caught off guard would try to have his or her campaign staff find out about such misrepresentations before the press got hold of them and publicized them or publicly questioned the candidate about them.
Similar situations may exist regarding various issues but sites such a Gather also give ordinary people the opportunity to express their opinion and become public advocates for their own position on the issues about which they feel strongly and for the candidates that they support without having some newspaper editor decide their opinions aren't worth publishing.
As to how you could tell if a Gather member is a paid staffer or ordinary citizen, the best was would probably be to check the name-space of and articles author and see if they write articles about other than that issue or candidate or comment on articles that are not related to that candidate or issue. If they do it is a pretty safe-bet that they are not being paid to blog on Gather, but the reverse would not necessarily true. The member could just be passionate about that candidate or issue and be using Gather to make their view known in hope of persuading other Gather members to their point of view.
Interesting news Timothy. I'm a paid money correspondent here at Gather, one of more than 70 -- from what I understand -- paid a small amount each month to blog about the subject represented on the Gather.com homepage (what it calls "The Essentials). I don't know of a Laura who blogs about politics, however, among them. But here's a list created as a member service by Kevin V. of the Gather.com political correspondents and news correspondents. FYI. These, however, are opinioned people but with no specific agenda, more akin to citizen journalists. I had heard that Gather is looking for at least two new political correspondents with opposing viewpoints though. If you or anyone else here is interested in the gig, contact Pamela Johnston, VP of Community Engagement.
As far as political groups working on Gather to encourage interest, it has and is being done. (Not unlike MySpace, where candidates across the board have pages, maintained by their own paid staffers.) For instance, Gather's former correspondent bureau chief, Amy Rubin, recently left Gather staff to to rejoin Gather as an online coordinator for John Edward's campaign.
I hope this information helps with the discussion Timothy. Let me know if you have any questions.
I wanted to jump in on this conversation and thank you for being a Gather member since September 2006. You've been here a lot longer than most of us!
I also want to thank Kevin V. and Jennifer Meacham for pointing you toward important information regarding the "Gather Bloggers" mentioned during the CNN presidential debates in New Hampshire and the Gather mentions you've seen or heard about lately on Fox News.
The debate bloggers were actually chosen as part of a unique competition in partnership with New Hampshire television station WMUR. They are all New Hampshire residents and were selected to attend the events by WMUR viewers and Gather members following an intense three week competition. The fact that the bloggers questions were asked and answered at the debates is a real tribute to the quality of the writers and the importance of the questions they posed.
Laura Schwartz is a regular contributor to Fox News. She also has a group here on Gather (laura.gather.com) where she blogs regularly, comments, connects and is part of the community. I think it's a great tribute to the quality of conversations being held on Gather that political pundits such as Laura are finding a home here.
Again, thanks for being here and asking the questions. And thanks to everyone who helped answer!
Pam
Also the fact the some folks possess a lot of power here would point in that direction also.
You know no matter what idiotic thing bush does , it's ALWAYS right.
This first group of advocates was very active when I first joined, and once the debate lost steam, they pretty much vanished from the radar screen.
Jackie Beltran
Senobia T
Debbie C
Stephalicious B
St Joan
Some of their compadres are still active, however they very seldom post or comment on the subject of illegal immigration.
Then as the illagal immigration topic became hot again, the following illegal immigrant advocates appeared out of the blue. And just like the first wave that I mentioned above, they went MIA as soon as thE debate lost steam.
Juan Martinez
Leti M
Now that the Immigration Reform Bill is in the news, here comes the third wave of illegal immigrant advocates.
Rico V
esther s
Again, are these people being paid to bpost hear in an attempt to sway public opinion, or are they perhaps Gather employees with ficticious memberships just trying to stirr the pot so Gather gets more hits on their website ?
www.freewebs.com/theptg/jackiebeltran.htm
Sorry, I have no clue as how to hyperlink.
Remember, I'm a computer dummy. I know that alot of people who comment here have multiple google searches going on in several different windows, but for the life of me I have no clue how to pull that off.
Ok, I know it sounds like a book, but it's really not that hard... I just have to spell it out so that you know what they are.
I am going to put an example in the next comment box in case it messes up.
<_a_ _href='full_URL_here'_>The name you want to appear<_/_a_>
Ignore all the underlines. I just put them there so the code line does not get recognized.
A real example:
Kyleigh's Stories
Try it!! :)
But you almost got it.....
Out of all your trials, this is the closest:
< a href=http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977031687>here< / a >
The problems there are:
1. There is a space between the first character "<" and "a". There should be no space beween "<" and "a".
2. The URL needs a single quote before and after. So it would be like href='http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977031687'
3. The last part should also have no spaces beween < and / and a and >.
Your willingness to learn is far better than many other people's attitude already.
Clickable Link Code Line
There were a number of authors and syndicated columnists last year (such as George F. Will and Ellen Goodman) who were invited to promote their book on Gather.
Last year (from Jan 06 and thereabouts) there were people who were told Gather is a great place to promote their blog; also, various authors or famous people suich as Derschowitz or political candidates such as Edwards have been invited or otherwise connected here to promote their cause via the Gather stream.
You might know that Gather advertises on NPR (Minnesota Public Radio was a founding member and I think is on the board - check below on this page see About Gather - and so, various people came last year and now who heard about Gather from NPR.
Are people being paid to blog here separately from the causes, people or organizations I've mentioned here? Could be. But is that wrong? i don't think so.
The Freebie groups were invited here, too, as were the Bzz agents; so, virtuallyl everybody who came here came to Gather because of some outside information. The Freebie and the Bzz agent people I think were awarded some introductory points just for joining as part of the promotion.
Here in Boston, those of us who joined right around Jan 14 or Jan 15, 2006 (and there are quite a few of us) joined because we saw a great article in the Boston Globe last year saying that Gather was a writer's site.
And don't forget that the Amazon and First Chapter's Competitions were highly advertised, too.
Gather is a business on the Gather Inc side and it well behooves them, I think, to bring in whatever individuals or groups they think would represent their causes, as a joint business venture that benefits Gather and the hired individual or organization. All businesses do this, don't they?
I don't follow the immigration debate (on Gather) as closely as you do, but some Gather members have blogs and websites independent of Gather (especially those that write regularly in the political spectrum). It is possible that the influx of new members may be due to the activity of these bloggers attracting readers to their non-Gather property, and cross-promoting their work here.
Also, as Katherine mentions, Gather is being marketed (through direct and indirect means), which can contribute to oscillations in membership.
In my own opinion, if the bloggers are spreading disinformation and propaganda to sway public opinion, that is just plain wrong.
But then again, that's just my own opinion.
It is like inserting a guy holding a sign into a public area, only this sign and public area are not anywhere or anything that can be touched.
Eamon..You and I have been following the illegal immigration debate for quite some time now, so what do you think about the Gather members that I mentioned in one of my previous comments ?
On the other hand, in the course of investigating some part time money making projects, I became aware of the fact that there are paid blog sites out there, and there are people paid to present a particular point of view. I would assume that they agree with this point of view or they wouldn't do it. Then again, I write well enough that I know that were someone to ask me to write something on a particular subject from a specific point of view, I could do it. The question would be whether I would.
Many of us were taught how to do this in high school debate. Often there you were required to argue a point of view very different from your own.
KMA to all the pro-illegal derelicts.