James Joyner engages in some high quality navel-gazing. But I think he misses the big development of the last year: The total acceptance of blogs as a legitimate platform for political reportage. Back in the early days of blogging, the medium was set apart by style as much as venue. It was shorter, punchier, almost never reported or edited. Blogs read very differently from magazines, and even more differently from newspapers. For some blogs, that remains true. But the last year has seen the rise of reported campaign blogs (and other reported blogs, but I'm going to use the campaign example here). Marc Ambinder, Ben Smith, The Caucus, the Trail -- blogs written by serious political reporters, some of them in a style approximating newspaper articles, all of them dedicated to gathering and disseminating new information (not commentary) about the race. Blogs are, increasingly, just a platform. They're set apart by speed, comments, lack of space constraints, ability to embed video, hyperlinks, etc. They're not set apart by a particular type of content. The terms "blogging" or "bloggers" are of almost no analytical use, as they don't describe anything more specific than "writers" or "writing." That's had profound effects in the writing industry, too. Blogging, in most cases, puts the spotlight on an individual. Ben Smith and Marc Ambinder are known quantities, and that's given them an edge over the Caucus and the Trail, both of which rely on a more diffuse pool of writers. This has furnished what John Harris calls an "entrepreneurial" writing culture, where it's much easier for young writer to use a magazine or newspaper to make their name, rather than simply contribute to the finished product. The Trail can keep going as long as The Washington Post has reporters willing to contribute to it. Marc Ambinder's blog, or for that matter, Ezra Klein's blog, can only keep going so long as Marc Ambinder and Ezra Klein are willing to write the content. That leaves writers with a lot more leverage than they've had in the past.
