Andrew Sullivan is making waves on the web for giving back the Boeing and striking out on his own.
The experiment addresses an intriguing question: Can a blogger actually make it as an independent business or will his audience run away in search of free content?
In my scientific life, I have to conduct experiments such that I do not influence the study to produce the result I want. But this isn’t science, and I therefore felt comfortable putting my thumb on the scale by signing up for a subscription to The Daily Dish.
I did it because I enjoy reading Sullivan, but also because I want his experiment to succeed as a demonstration of a more general possibility. The blogging endeavor can’t survive in a significant form forever a la Huffington Post — providing free material that feeds off of paid content until the producers of that content go broke. Yes there will always be bloggers in their mom’s basement, knocking out rants to an audience of a half-dozen members of their moody loner support group, but those fellows will never shape public discourse as can people with Sullivan’s reach.
I admire him for experimenting on himself (a noble tradition within science, no matter what the horror movies taught you), and very much hope for positive results.
Tags: andrew sullivan
This bundler of “free content” wants me to send him content and pay him for it too? Bah humblog. The view from my mom’s basement window is fine enough for me.
If you want to support a blogger, send a contribution to Digby.
She writes better than Sullivan, she is more insightful, and she is much more honest. Also, she grew her site organically.
But realistically, neither of them do any original reporting. So if your concern is that you need to support the original reporting that fuels the whole shooting match, subscribe to the Times.
But realistically, neither of them do any original reporting.
I didn’t say original reporting (although that has value), I said original content. Daily Dish does a great deal of original writing, it doesn’t just link to/comment on other’s work.
I suppose it’s worth pointing out that, being HIV positive, Sullivan is only in durable on the individual market (as opposed to the group plans of Time, The Atlantic, and The Daily Beast) because of government regulations that require insurers to carry them. I don’t know whether the ACA plays a role (New York may be more protective than the ACA), but it’s something to consider.
That’s a good point. HIV/AIDS care is defined as an essential health care benefit so it will be covered ina any policy sold on the health exchanges for the state.
Right. You don’t read Sully for reporting, you read it for a different point of view – whether that is worth the price or not is up to the individual. Personally, there are a lot of days where there is too much chaff to sift through.
= = = Right. You don’t read Sully for reporting, you read it for a different point of view = = =
Sullivan’s initial statement – “The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead -and may well mount a fifth column.” – was made at a time that major national Republican media figures were advocating that ‘libruls’ and all who opposed the Bush/Cheney war with Iraq be hunted down on the street and beaten to death with blocks of wood. Literally. Later Sullivan realized what sort of filthy swamp he had driven himself into (although it seems that should have been clear after his actions as editor of TNR) and strode arrogantly and with no apology back into the Democrats’ big tent, altering his previously-published words to make it seem that he had not been part of the Right’s lynch mob. If that’s the sort of “different point of view” you think is helpful, by all means send him your money. Might want to read _The Grifters_, and study Sarah Palin’s career, first though.
Cranky
I read and enjoy Sullivan. I’m impressed by his success, and I wish him well. But I think the pioneering nature of this move is being oversold. As Sullivan himself notes, Josh Marshall does this. And Marshall followed in the footsteps of Drudge and others.
Moreoever, I think Prof. Humphreys is unduly dismissive of the alternatives to paid journalism, perhaps out of false humility:
In fact, Sullivan competes (or coexists) in a blogiverse where many writers are clever and influential – many of them academics who want to reach a wider audience and who ponder public policy for a living. While their participation on the Internet raises the level of public discourse, it’s a real problem for paid journalism.
“…there will always be bloggers in their mom’s basement, knocking out rants to an audience of a half-dozen members of their moody loner support group…”
You take take self-criticism too far.
Is Sullivan that much better a pundit than us moonlighters at the RBC? To be worth paying for his opinions? Bloggers like us are more Sullivan’s and Drum’s competition than the NYT reporters. I agree it would be a shame to lose them.
It’s not that we don’t have any value James, but (1) We are too wonky to ever get a big audience and (2) We don’t post anywhere near as much as can a full-time person or team paid for blogging. Personally, I blog mainly because I enjoy it. I am glad some people read what I write and that some of them find it useful in some way and that some of them write comments that I find stimulating and helpful to my thinking, but I don’t know that I am having any impact beyond that with my posts.
Your link points to the first reference to Taking the Boeing but doesn’t explain what the phrase means.
Why Boeing?
A Boeing Business Jet, whether a full 747-8i or a “mere” 747, is about 2 orders of magnitude greater in status than a paltry Dassault Falcon 7X.
The phrase “take the Boeing”, in reference to selling out one’s blog for cash, was coined by The Ole Perfesser (Instapundit) back when entities such as the NYT were deeply concerned with ‘blogger ethics’
Should be “mere 737″.