Inside PBS Blog

San Diego lawyer Charles Hartley had been blogging for several years when he came across a help wanted ad from KPBS, his local PBS station.

It wanted six viewers who were willing to spend the next year blogging about the presidential election.

Charles didn't hesitate to apply.

"I thought this would be a different forum. ... And quite frankly, I'm self-employed, so I look for any chance I can to increase my name recognition," he says.

Six months later, Charles is one of the stars of Citizen Voices, KPBS's yearlong experiment with citizen blogging.

The project brings together six average Joes from the San Diego area, including Charles, a registered Republican who considers himself a Libertarian; Candace Suerstedt, a Democratic filmmaker; and Steven Garrett, a registered Libertarian and professional food blogger.

Each one receives a monthly $225 stipend to blog weekly about local and national election issues. They also appear regularly on KPBS's local TV and radio shows.

The bloggers choose their own topics, except for one week in June, when KPBS asked them to blog about California's gay marriage law.

Charles, who is gay, blogged about his June 18 ceremony.

In April, he dismissed the electric car movement, writing, "Street parking and driveway parking are facts of life, and … alterations like running an electric line curbside are questionable at best."

Fellow blogger Candace took on the press in July, blaming it for keeping Americans "in a constantly inflamed state of being." Steven confessed on June 3 that he didn't vote in that day's local election, saying he has lost "every right to complain about the new mayor OR if the propositions pass."

Leng Caloh, KPBS's convergence editor [note her title--not something you'd have seen even two years ago], says the station "wanted Citizen Voices to have the quality of a public broadcasting conversation. It's civil. Sometimes we think it's too civil."

KPBS, which also operates a public radio station, created Citizen Voices to get its viewers and listeners more involved in public media, Leng says.

"We're kind of known as the place where the pundits go to talk," Leng says. "But we wanted to tap into the community and get some more personal voices, some more diverse voices."

So far, Citizen Voices is KPBS.org's third most popular blog, behind its movie and pop culture sections.

The station received 96 applications for Citizen Voices bloggers, narrowing the list to the six who were chosen.

Each one received basic journalism training before Citizen Voices launched in January.

The bloggers must submit each entry to a KPBS editor before it's posted. Charles says none of his have been heavily edited.

"I tend to write like a lawyer so it's usually just a case of seeing my paragraphs split into two or three," he says.

Do you blog? Would it be helpful to do it solo or with a public broadcaster's help? If you're not blogging about the election, are there other ways you plan to express your opinions online?

Share your thoughts in the comments section below.