by Cheryl Rofer
I mentioned in passing last week, maybe in WhirledView Choice, that I have my doubts about what I might call "institutional" bloggers. There are scads of "blogs," for example, at the New York Times, some of which occasionally have something worth reading. That's about once a week, although I have to admit I don't scan all of them.
Then there's the problem I mentioned (must have been in a post; too many words for WV Choice) about the conflict between what a reporter might put in a blog post and what would go into a story, or just the issue of time, if it's reporters doing the "blogging." I like McClatchy's Nukes and Spooks, for example, but they frequently go for days or even weeks without a new post. Ditto for the New Yorker's suite of "blogs." Come to think of it, I may like these "blogs" for what I think they might someday reveal, rather than anything I've actually read there.
A couple of exceptions I can think of are James Fallows's blog at the Atlantic, and Scott Horton's at Harper's. Both actually contain content (although Fallows's can be thin) and relatively regular posts.
A blowup at the Center for American Progress over one of Matt Yglesias's opinions exemplifies the fundamental problem, though. The sponsoring organization has one set of interests; the blogger has another. This is inevitably true no matter how closely the two agree on issues. The sponsoring organization lives in a network of power and money relationships that will sometimes conflict with a blogger's opinions. This sort of heavy-handedness will affect what a blogger chooses to write if he is getting paid for his blogging (and yes, it's usually he/his). Or just a mild word might do.
I've linked to Ezra Klein, writing for The American Prospect, because he sort of explains it. Reading Ezra's post and his links, along with a selection of the too-many-to-read comments, will give you the idea. Matt wrote something that the CAP management didn't like. They placed a disclaimer on his blog. But of course he's still free to write whatever. It's just that it's not CAP's view.
Perhaps this is persuasive to some, but I've had people with authority over my salary gently suggest that perhaps I had overstepped some bounds, not a problem you know, but just might be good to think about such things. It activates that little censor in your head.
What I like about blogging is that I'm not reading The Offical Version. And, having worked for an organization, I know that what they approve of will be The Official Version. So I'll continue to prefer the independent bloggers.