Interview with Blogger Jarrett Plonka

By The Pakistani Spectator • Sep 10th, 2008 • Category: Interviews • No Responses

Would you please tell us something about you and your site?
I’m a law student in Canada and I’ve been blogging since 2004. My site, kerplonka.blogspot.com, covers a number of topics, but I try to focus on Canadian and international politics, as well as military and economic issues.

Do you feel that you continue to grow in your writing the longer you write? Why is that important to you?
Yes, absolutely. When I started blogging I took it as an exercise in attacking others with long-winded partisan posts about how right I was. Once I explored the blogosphere and became acquainted with other blogs, particularly the variety of Canadian political blogs, I realized the best ones were a) more neutral in their content, though they might maintain an opinion on a topic, b) less long-winded and c) more thought out. People don’t consider your writing as interesting as you do, something I’ve taken great pains to learn. I find I’m attracted not to long posts, but to shorter ones that make a good point. I’ve tried to emulate that as I’ve matured, not only my readers and my traffic, but for myself - I want to feel good in a few years about something I write today.

I’m wondering what some of your memorable experiences are with blogging?
The top two have to be,

1) There were a couple of times - when I posted a forwarded e-mail from a local political candidate from the side I don’t support; when I posted on Iraqi citizens donating money to help with Hurricane Katrina - when some of the most popular Canadian sites picked up on what I was posting and linked to me. My traffic spiked, I made some friends, and some of the readers stayed. It’s a great feeling!

2) I’m always amazed by the friends I’ve made by blogging. I have at least five or six great friends, mostly on the other side of the continent, whom I’ve never met but who I talk to frequently. It’s an interesting way to make friends, because you already have something to talk about and can continue from there.

What do you do in order to keep up your communication with other bloggers?
Aside from making friends with people and talking with them on messenger services or e-mail, the easiest two are, a) by leaving comments on their sites and discussing things with them that way, and b) communicating with them on Facebook.

What do you think is the most exciting or most innovative use of technology in politics right now?
It’s a very general comment, but I think it’s critical to realize that technology such as the internet has greatly shifted the importance of “people power”. To use a couple of US examples, in the 2004 election, we saw bloggers proving that the mainstream media were fabricating documents made to make George Bush look bad. In 2006 or so, George Allen, who was perceived to be the obvious choice to lead the Republicans in 2008, was caught making a racist remark by a democratic staffer with a video camera, so that idea was quickly ended. Technology like this introduces the scrutiny of incredible numbers of individual people into the political process, meaning that every voter is important, every lie can blow up in a politician’s face, and politics must necessarily become more democratic.

Do you think that these new technologies are effective in making people more responsive?
I think so, but only to a certain extent. I think the key is that these technologies offer a wide breadth of perspectives that wouldn’t otherwise be available. If someone might not like reading a newspaper or watching TV because they don’t care for prepackaged and marketed coverage, they might resort to blogs or something else to find a perspective from an individual, which may not adhere to all journalistic rules, but which might be more real and palatable. In other words, a different perspective made available by technology might give the disengaged a reason to become engaged. Neutrality is a lie, so at least people know what they’re getting on a site which is overtly biased.

What do you think sets Your site apart from others?
Not much. I’m quite young, which is a bit rare for political bloggers, especially conservative bloggers. I also try to blog more neutrally than others, because I see it as an exercise in forwarding my opinions first, and not a way to help my favourite party. There are also surprisingly few people blogging about politics from my geographic area (British Columbia). Finally, I’ve been blogging for about four years now, so I’ve kept up with it longer than most.

If you could choose one characteristic you have that brought you success in life, what would it be?
Oh boy. Good question, and I have no easy answer. A good work ethic, perhaps?

What was the happiest and gloomiest moment of your life?
I have no idea. Life is about experiencing the range of human emotions and just generally being happy so I certainly value every memory I have of spending time with my friends or sharing a good laugh with someone. There was a social event at our law school which essentially involved stand-up comedy, and I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard. That memory I certainly treasure.

If you could pick a travel destination, anywhere in the world, with no worries about how it’s paid for - what would your top 3 choices be?
Too many to choose from, but
France - not just Paris, but most of France.
Singapore or Hong Kong - either one of these would fascinating.
Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

What is your favorite book and why?
There are too many to choose from. I’ll say Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo, for the amazing quality of the literature and the story.

What’s the first thing you notice about a person (whether you know them or not)?
How they interact with people around them - their body language, the way they converse, etc.

Is there anyone from your past that once told you you couldn’t write?
No. I was quite lucky in that regard, I suppose.

How bloggers can benefit from blogs financially?
Poorly! Most of the revenue you might get from blogs are from the small bits of money from Google Ads or things like that, which do not make much money unless you’re at the top of your game (think of e.g. Charles Johnson at LittleGreenFootballs.com), at which point your readers will simply donate money if you ask. I think someone actually did a survey a few years ago and found that bloggers were more likely to be unemployed or underemployed - the people who did it tended to have the time to do so. Blogging has to be done for the love of it. It’s a lot less work to go out and get a real job, any job!

Is it true that who has a successful blog has an awful lot of time on their hands?
There’s certainly an element of truth to it (see above), but it’s not a hard-and-fast rule. Plenty of bloggers have enough to do already - Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com is a law professor, for instance. We all have 24 hours in a day, so I think the trick is that finding a bit of free time in which to make your posts, especially if you feel strongly about it so that all the words are there.

What role can bloggers of the world play to make this world more friendlier and less hostile?
Talk amongst each other! And don’t be so set in your opinions you wish to argue with people. TALK, DISCUSS, but don’t ARGUE. We’re all people and we all have opinions which we would discuss in a far more civil manner if we were talking in front of each other.

Canada speaks English and French, but I’m about as far from the French-speaking area as possible. Nevertheless, I speak French, so I got involved with French-language blogs. It was an interesting experience - we had completely different perspectives, being from completely opposite sides of the country, with completely different interests politically, but we found that we often wanted the same things in different ways. The ability to understand people who the media make out to be foreign was incredibly interesting.

Who are your top five favourite bloggers?
In no order of preference,
*Paul Wells, who blogs at Inkless Wells at Maclean’s Magazine. His political commentary is always lucid and on the ball. The sign of a good blog is that nobody seems to know precisely where Wells sits on the ideological scale.
*My friend Ben Sharma, at tigerinexile.wordpress.com. Very thoughtful commentary on politics, particularly US and Canadian.
*Bob Tarantino, a Toronto lawyer who blogs at bobtarantino.blogs.com. He’s less frequent than others, but his posts are always filled with quality content.
*Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com, for the sheer breadth and variety of fascinating content.
*the group blog at TheCourt.ca

Is there one observation or column or post that has gotten the most powerful reaction from people?
The first one which comes to mind is my post “Iraqis Thank USA”, which was linking to a news story about Iraqis donating to the Red Crescent to show symbolic support for, if I remember correctly, the victims of Hurricane Katrina. That was the first major coverage I got from major Canadian blogs, and it inspired what I might call quite a spirited debate between myself and some commenters.

What is your perception about Pakistan and its people?
Powerful, friendly, hardworking, underestimated. I suspect we in the West often here about Pakistan only when bad things occur or as Pakistan relates to the war in Afghanistan, or sometimes in the context of it being a smaller neighbour to India. Really, though, any neutral evaluators give me the impression Pakistan is a formidable country whose capabilites are sorely underestimated.

Have you ever become stunned by the uniqueness of any blogger?
Absolutely. Just about any prolific blogger is unique in some particular way.

What is the most striking difference between a developed country and a developing country?
I haven’t traveled extensively enough to give anything other than an ignorant answer to that question.

What is the future of blogging?
Importance and credibility. I think a lot of the criticisms raised against blogs - the fact anyone can write them, the fact their writing is more rough than polished, the fact they don’t strictly adhere to journalistic standrds - are not only artificial, but strengths of the medium. Modern media has become nonsensically polished without any true depth to its content. Once a credibility gap opens up and the media stops being trusted - and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that’s the case - the fact blogs can be written by anyone without journalistic standards really seems irrelevant, particularly given experiences with e.g. Memogate or Jayson Blair. We’re all aware of the political biases of blogs - there’s no nonsensical facade of neutrality - but if a blog starts making things up, people can catch it and will stop reading them. I think there’s no greater demonstration of blogs’ importance and credibility than the fact that major journalists at major outlets all cary blogs now, and that during the last Canadian election, prolific Canadian bloggers were called by the CBC to comment on the election.

You have also got a blogging life, how has it directly affected both your personal and professional life?
Blogging only has affected my personal life insofar as it’s helped me make friends I never would have met otherwise. I don’t believe blogging has affected my professional life, though I’m a student so perhaps we’ll see some substantial impact once my future career gets into motion.

What are your future plans?
Graduate law school, become a lawyer, travel.

Any Message you want to give to the readers of The Pakistani Spectator?Greetings!