Posts tagged “Blogging” from longer posts

So, Matt Yglesias has decided to leave The Atlantic to take up a post with the content-creating wing of the Center for American Progress. Super interesting stuff. Matt was the very first political blogger I ever read -- whiling away those long recess hours in the Rayburn H.O.B., circa 2002 or so. He introduced me to the possibility that blogging could be a factor in the swirl of D.C. political life. Memorieeees... Anyway, it seems Matt's hungry to be more of an activist and an advocate than a journalist, but what's particularly intriguing to me is this line in his announcement post: "From a reader's point of view, this probably won't make a huge difference." As a writer/blogger with a big following, having the ability to pack up and move to a new URL is probably tremendously thrilling in a "f___ you money" sort of way. But there is a trade-off. First of all, you're probably not in as great a position to tap into institutional resources that way. And secondly, there's not as much tying you to your colleagues -- which is, in fact, one of the very reasons Matt cited for leaving The Atlantic for CAP.

I was sitting around thinking "You know what my life needs? More blog." So I'm happy to introduce trooantroo, my new Brooklyn photo blog. The name comes from the epigraph to Thomas Wolfe's 1935 article in the New Yorker "Only the Dead Know Brooklyn":

Dere's no guy livin' dat knows Brooklyn t'roo an' t'roo, because it'd take a guy a lifetime just to find his way aroun' duh f_____ town.

I should probably mention that as of today I've taken over writing and editing the Daily Digest from TechPresident, a site that covers how technology is shaping politics and vice versa where I've long been a contributing editor. With the TP associate editor and my good friend Josh Levy heading over to become the managing editor at Change.org, I'll be doing the digest for a couple/few months as the Personal Democracy Forum team focuses on preparing for the upcoming PdF '08 conference and figures out how to live with Josh.

It's going to be fun. My inaugural digest is up now, and you can always sign up to get it sent right to your inbox.

• The One Where I Introduce Myself
• Card-Check Organizing (or, Too Many Goliaths)
• Question for '08ers: Can You Point to the Power Button?
• We, The People of the Year

Just 10 bucks gets you Air America's streaming video of the Yearly Kos conference. And if you tune in to Room 1's feed tomorrow at 2:45, you just might see me on the network neutrality panel. I do think that I've caught some sort of bug, though -- if I look a little green, it's just that.

I'm busy researching a piece on the future of filmmaking that I think is gonna be great if I can beat it into shape, but I wanted to point out this post from MyDD's Chris Bowers that asks some potentially illuminating questions about the role of the blogosphere in the Alito nomination.

I don't even think that you need to be a blog triumphalist to think that this -- a network anchor (George Stephanopoulos) questioning a U.S. Senator (Barack Obama) on air about a story posted by a blogger (Steve Clemons) regarding first-hand comments on a pressing issue (bipartisan ethics reform) made by another Senate Minority Leader (Harry Reid) during a blogger conference call -- is a pretty cool thing to happen.