I attended the Breitbart Awards dinner in Providence last night. It was part of the Future of Journalism Summit sponsored by The Heritage Foundation and The Franklin Center.
Jim Hoft has the details on the winners. There were about 100 people in attendance.
Via Jim’s blog, here’s Anne with Jim, Andrew Marcus (HatingBreitbart – award winner) and James O’Keefe:
The Summit was scheduled for Providence in order to be close to Netroots Nation.
As you will recall, Netroots was frustrated that Right Online followed it from city to city each year. So Netroots chose Providence which has only one convention center and limited hotel space as a way to prevent Right Online from holding its annual convention in the same city. Considering what Anne was able to accomplish, Netroots was right to run.
As longtime readers know, I don’t do blog conferences. There are a variety of reasons for that, but mostly it’s me, not them.
I attended the Breitbart Awards because it was in Providence, and it was the Breitbart Awards.
And I’m glad I did. It was nice to meet so many of the people I have read or read about over the three and one-half years of blogging.
More important, it was an emotional recharger.
There was a very moving video about Andrew Breitbart, and many speeches about experiences people had with him.
Multiple people who knew Andrew the best told of his philosophy that he was there to take the fire so that others didn’t have to. While the hateful attacks on him, which were beyond imagination, certainly were not fun, he thrived on being the guy who absorbed what the left had to throw.
That’s a concept I’ve thought about, although not exactly in those terms.
I understand that for many if not most readers, coming out of the conservative political closet is not an option. There are jobs to worry about.
Meeting so many bloggers who blog under their own names, and who endure anywhere from mild criticism to threats, was inspiring.
I may need to rethink my blog conference phobia. I still doubt I’ll attend the really big conferences, but small gatherings of co-conspirators now is a possibility.
(thanks again to reader Patricia for the image)
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