Advice For Liberal Bloggers ...

Jeanne D'Arc posts on a story in today's New York Times that contains the following priceless passage:

"Asked what lessons liberal and progressive bloggers could learn from the experience of FreeRepublic, Mr. Taylor replied that while "I'm loath to give them advice," they might have to outgrow the conspiracy-theory stage of blogging to produce reports that are credible and relevant to a wider audience.

"In the old days of FreeRepublic," he said, "we had all kinds of black helicopters" and speculation about the effect of the Y2K problem. After the world did not end on Jan. 1, 2000, he said, "We tried to be more realistic." "

Unfortunately, the story ends there. Had it continued, one can only imagine what further pearls of wisdom we might have found ...

... Maybe something like this: "According to Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds, "bloggers need to offer some real value-added to their readers: policy analysis, humor, whatever. When Josh Marshall posts a link and adds 'Heh" or "Indeed", that just doesn't cut it." Powerline's Hindrocket has a different analysis: "Liberal bloggers write as though conservatives are all evil cartoon figures. But blog readers are more sophisticated than that: they know that people with different ideologies are all complicated, three-dimensional human beings, and they expect bloggers to write accordingly. Until liberal bloggers realize this, they will never reach a wider audience, nor should they." Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs thinks that liberals' problem is more visceral: "They traffic in pure hatred, and that sort of thing just puts people off. If they want to appeal to more people, they have to be willing to call out readers who think that anyone who disagrees with them is a traitor who should be tortured or killed. Besides", Johnson mused, "it's the responsible thing to do." Kim Du Toit's analysis is simpler: "Single-issue monomaniacs are never popular. End of story." "

A girl can dream, can't she?

Comments

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"Kim Du Toit's analysis is simpler: "Single-issue monomaniacs are never popular. End of story."

Heh.

[2shoes]

Until liberal bloggers realize this, they will never reach a wider audience, nor should they.

Don't liberal blogs outdraw their right counterparts by a considerable margin?

[hilzoy]

2shoes: traffic rankings are here; a lot depends on how many blogs you are considering. (I mean: if you compare the most popular liberal blog to the most popular conservative blog, yes; less clear as one proceeds down the list.) But in the real world of real traffic rankings, FreeRepublic would not be offering advice to kos.

[hilzoy]

And Sebastian: my favorite line was:

"Besides", Johnson mused, "it's the responsible thing to do."

Indeed.

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

Mrs. Du Toit had a blog for a while. It was actually very good. That is slightly off topic, but I'm ADD so that is expected. ;)

[von]

Priceless, Hilzoy. Remind me to stay on your good side.

[Chuchundra]

Thanks hilzoy, another perfectly good irony meter destroyed by overload.

You'll be hearing from my attorney.

[R J Keefe]

The article, by Jonathan Glater, was one of the dumbest pieces that I have ever read in the Times. Did anybody see Eric Alterman's very fine page on blogs and the Jordan affair in last week's Nation (Labor story on the cover)? Why read Instapundit or Powerline when R Robot cuts to the chase right away - is, in fact, nothing but chase.

[liberal japonicus]

Instapundit, Powerline, LGF, and Kim Du Toit. I have to imagine that some conservative bloggers (Malkin, Hewitt, NRO corner) must feel pretty left out. ;^)

I should note that the article has one of the best descriptions of the echo chamber that I have ever read

"It's a team effort," Mr. Taylor of FreeRepublic.com said. "We feed off each other, because the radio hosts would have information that we didn't have and then we would post that." In the early days of FreeRepublic, meetings with politicians and other offline efforts helped get word of the site out, too.

[rilkefan]

Andrew Sullivan surely has something to say to us about the latest pro-gay-marriage ruling in CA.

[abbcd]

Dreaming would seem accurate.

[dmbeaster]

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs thinks that liberals' problem is more visceral: "They traffic in pure hatred, and that sort of thing just puts people off...."

Translation: "I thought they were going to hit me [with pure hatred], so I hit them back first."

[Platypus]

I have to imagine that some conservative bloggers (Malkin, Hewitt, NRO corner) must feel pretty left out.

Yes, well, feeling left out is pretty much their whole schtick, isn't it? They're addicted to feeling left out, but they can no longer claim to be left out of politics when they control all three branches of government. The "liberal mainstream media" surrogate seems increasingly laughable, the crusade against academe never really got going, so I guess now they'll want to blame the evil lefty bloggers. If they ever stopped feeling left out they wouldn't know what to do with themselves.

[Jude Nagurney Camwell]

I agree that blogs should be kept interesting by the interjection of humor. Gloom and doom is boring.

I have an issue with Charles' (of Little Green Footballs) "pure hatred" statement.
LGF was the topic at one of the Bloggercons and was discussed by non-partisans there. The LGFers have shown quite a bit of what they seem to be calling "hatred" themselves. (I'm not calling it "hatred", mind you. That is their term).

Also, I have personally, as an individual blogger with a sense of humor, tried to engage the entirety of the Little Green Footballs group in discussing their obvious displeasure with past statements of my own, and they have never taken up the challenge. (This wasn't my first attempt to encourage them to discuss the matter).
From personal experience, I think it's easier for some of them to label someone a "hater" than to enter a rational discussion.

So, with due respect, I cannot completely buy into what you're saying here.

[Jay C]

"From personal experience, I think it's easier for some of them to label someone a "hater" than to enter a rational discussion."

Gee, Jude, good call...... and this took you HOW long to realize, vis-a-vis LGF?

Sorry for the snark, but this illustrates, in a nutshell, the fundamental flaw in "the blogosphere" as an indicator of opinion about almost ANY issue of import. Far from being the "alternative" medium for Unvarnished Truth, a depressingly large percentage of blogs are just echo-chambers for whatever opinionated viewpoints their proprietors wish to trumpet (NB, ObWi one of the glaring exceptions to that rule).

You're quite right about the humor, though....And I congratulate the ObWings collective for bringing Charles in to provide it......
(That is, when he isn't sucking and ruining the site....)
{ ;) }

[hilzoy]

"I have an issue with Charles' (of Little Green Footballs) "pure hatred" statement."

-- Just to be on the safe side: you do realize that I made up the last paragraph?

[LaruenceB]

Very funny. I can't stop re-reading the "quotes" and snickering to myself.