I've been wondering when it would finally happen: Andrew Sullivan's Sunday Times column today is about blogging. It's a good article, though there's nothing very surprising in it. The account of the evolution of andrewsullivan.com from vanity site to warblog, and the numbers and stats are pretty interesting. ($27,000 from the tip jar in 2001! So that's what it's like on the A-list!)
Even while he makes the case that blogging is shaking the foundations of traditional journalism, Sullivan, not surprisingly, focuses on blogging as a professional journalist's new medium. I agree with Richard Bennett that it's the participation of non-journalist "civilians" that is of most interest. Sullivan hints at it when he writes of his initial surprise that readers, through email, were providing and shaping a great deal of the content for his blog. I wonder how many of them have started their own blogs by now? I'm one. (I think I recall Glenn Reynolds saying he used to send in links and tips to Sullivan long before he started Instapundit-- which, of course, inspired many more waves of bloggers.) Most war- or politi-bloggers began the process as devoted readers of this or that blog, and I suspect that before they discovered the blogosphere they were devoted readers of print punditry. Though it's interesting to speculate how the phenomenon might influence the journalism profession, the really interesting angle is how the blogosphere is changing the way the most avid readers relate to political writing and commentary in the first place. As Sullivan points out, the blogosphere isn't just an environment for a more efficient, on-line, souped-up version of print punditry. It's something else. And, while there are large areas of overlap, this "something else" has, for me, pretty much replaced the old version (which used to occupy a pretty substantial part of my life.) I know I'm not the only one. (And I'd like to say, in advance of the ever-hovering accusation, that this is not "triumphalism"-- it's a simple fact.)
Posted by Dr. Frank at February 24, 2002 12:16 PM | TrackBack