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Separated at birth?
Mr. Deep Background



Matt Drudge



In what looks like a PR stunt designed to capture the interest of bloggers, Ragan Communications has started a new blog called Deep Background, aimed at flacks who deal with the government. As you can see, it looks like Mr. Deep Background and Matt Drudge were separated at birth.
Deep Background is tagged as “a blog on government communications, straight from the mouth of a senior-level, unidentified source.” Translation: it’s an anonymous blog. Those have low level credibility in the blogosphere.
A click on “comments” leads to a server error message, and the blog has no trackbacks, an essential feature.
In its “About” section, the blog is described as “blog for local, state and federal government media professionals. We cover strategies, tactics, non-political issues and other practical matters that are useful to government communicators.”
Deep Throat
Ragan Communications editor Roula Amire told me in email that it’s anonymous because “There was no way of getting around it. We could not find someone that works for the government to go on record with a blog. It is against their policy at work b/c the administration says a blog can be interpreted speaking for the administration. I can assure you that this is a senior executive that works in communications for the government….we think it will be a great blog for government communicators.”
It remains to be seen whether any interesting content develops; whether Mr. or Ms. Deep Background participates in the blogosphere through links, trackbacks and networking; and whether content is updated frequently.