Meet a student blogger: Chris Berry

This is the first installment of what will hopefully be a weekly, or at least biweekly, feature on Student Bloggers. The idea is courtesy of a blog in the SB directory, Student Athlete, which frequently features student athletes with a brief questionaire. Bloggers will be selected initially by their level of particiption in the site, whether it be in comments, the Facebook group, or otherwise. Feel free to leave feedback on the feature in the comments or send them to studentblogs@gmail.com.

This first installment features Chris Berry of Harding University and TheChrisBerry.com, a primarily political blog.

Major – Public Relations with a minor in Political Science

Planned graduation year – 2010

Student Bloggers: Why did you start blogging?

Chris: The comments I was leaving on other blogs were getting much too long, so I started my own blog to rave on instead of hijacking others’ comment sections.

SB: Was it a conscious decision to write a political blog or did it come organically from your interests?

Chris: I have been interested in politics since I was about 13, so it is naturally something that I would discuss more than other things.

SB: Can you think of a post that has raise particularly strong debate in comments?

Chris: There was a satirical post in which I claimed Mike Huckabee was a commie, when someone pointed out that the tank in the logo for his grassroots website was actually a Soviet-made tank. Some people did not get the joke.

SB: Has blogging ever come up in your classes?

Chris: In a  general since, we discuss blogging in classes such as “Mass Communication,” but I their have been discussions in some classes where the professor has shown/read from his blog during class if the material he has written about is pertinent to what we are discussing in class.  I once blogged about a discussion from a class, and the teacher brought up some of the points from my post during the next class period.

SB: Do you forsee continuing well after college? If so, do you think you’d change format, or your approach to blogging?

Chris: I love to write.  I could never be a journalist, because I would have to try and stay unbiased.  With a blog, I can discuss the same information as the news, but without censoring myself or being censored by someone else.

SB:  Some of people still see blogging as pretty dorky. Do you catch crap from your friends for it?

Actually, a lot of my friends read my blog on a regular basis.  Some of the friends are rather conservative on the political spectrum but say they still enjoy my “liberal propaganda.”  There is also quite a “liberal underground” among the blogosphere of Harding University, which holds much more readership than the few conservative blogs by students you find on campus.

SB: Finally, what are the top three blogs you regularly read?

Chris: “Eppur Si Muove” (Dr. Mark Elrod’s now private blog), ThinkProgress.org, PoliticalCartel.com

SB: Final thoughts?

Chris: I appreciate “Student Bloggers” for helping build this community of online students.  As blogging becomes more and more common, it seems to become more and more important.  I never start the day without reading my handful of favorites.  I also encourage everyone to try blogging at least once, most people will catch on and really enjoy it.