good faith
Escape from Thunderdome
Here’s the tick-tock: Marc Ambinder writes a terrific, thought-provoking post titled I Am a Blogger No Longer. Here at Snarkmarket, it strikes us all so well and so deeply that we decide to dive in:
- Matt goes first, and he talks about what “ego-driven reporting” might or might not be. He also reminds us that there are, in fact, as many species of blogger as there are species of journalist, or species of spider.
- Tim goes next, bringing the powerful notion of “authorship” into the mix. My favorite bit is the part where he challenges you to name a single byline other than Josh Marshall’s at Talking Points Memo. That’s actually a really powerful observation about blogging and the way it’s matured.
- Then—true to Snarkmarket form—the comments come in, almost better than the posts. Saheli unearths a strain of deep feeling in Ambinder’s post (which I’m going to come back to); Lois reminds us that blogging, for all its freedom, imposes deep constraints of its own. It demands, for instance, that you be the same person day-to-day—that you use the same voice.
Now it’s my turn, and I’m going to keep it short.
