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THE MSB. Justin Fox, ruminating on a blogging panel he recently attended, writes:
When it comes to blogging, we magazine people feel like poor little upstart outsiders. Heather asked why no magazine blogs had cracked the Technorati Top 100 of the most linked-to blogs (actually, National Review Online's The Corner is No. 65, and I'd like to think our own Swampland will make it at some point). NYMag.com editorial director Ben Williams said it was because our blogs haven't been around nearly as the long as the "established blogs." The blogosphere arose in part as a rebellion against the establishment Mainstream Media. Now it is its own establishment. So we're the scrappy little guys (in our midtown Manhattan skyscrapers) taking on the Mainstream Blogosphere. Yeah, that's it! &$#@ the MSB!That's tongue-in-cheek, but it doesn't strike me as an outlandish point. This summer, at YearlyKos, New York Times Magazine writer and one-time blogosphere bete noire Matt Bai will help moderate a forum for the Democratic presidential candidates. In this case, Bai is there at the blogosphere's pleasure, enjoying an opportunity -- moderating the candidates -- he wouldn't have without their help. And I've had various editors and established writers express frustration that they suddenly have to compete in the intellectual arena where their carefully cultivated authority is shot and they begin at a disadvantage to some dude who runs a "wanker of the day" contest. In this way, the blogosphere has become something of the new, hot thing, and a lot of folks who thought they'd reached the finest of all the lunch tables are a bit shocked and put out by the change.All that said, blogs like Time's Swampland still begin with a massive head start -- which is why you know what this two-month old blog named Swampland is. So the mainstream media hasn't lost all their advantages. But in this new medium -- which their editors and marketing folks keep telling them they need to compete in -- they've lost a lot of the security they once had.--Ezra Klein
