It is true: I am the coordinating force behind a vast, tentacular conspiracy involving every journalist and policy wonk in Washington, DC. To this I say: It's all true. My power is immense. My enemies will be crushed. My bling shines fierce. Mwahahahahaha. Sort of. Mike Calderone's story on Journolist basically gets the list serv right, though the Politico headline, the Drudge headline, and so forth get it quite wrong. There are a lot of off the record list servs floating around Washington, DC. There's one for bloggers, three for feminists, a couple for national security reporters, a handful for progressive organizers, and dozens more I know nothing about. There are a lot of list servs where people talk about things that aren't related to politics. It may surprise you to know this, but the members of the IFA often communicate privately over a Google group rather than publicly on our (admittedly awesome) blog. This is part of a broader, and admittedly worrying, societal trend in which loose communities of people communicate privately over e-mail.Journolist is meant to serve a very specific purpose that's actually related to my experience building this blog. The work of this site has always been to illuminate standard political reporting with expert policy commentary. In that, I've been helped by the many experts who have adopted the medium as their own: Mark Thoma, Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman, Matthew Holt, Peter Orszag, Andrew Gelman, Larry Bartels, Dani Rodrik, John Sides, among others. As a journalist, it's hard to always know who to call or which questions to ask. The joy of those blogs is that I don't have to guess what experts think is important: They simply explain what they think is important and I can use, or follow-up on, the information. OBLIGATORY JOURNOLIST POST.
It is true: I am the coordinating force behind a vast, tentacular conspiracy involving every journalist and policy wonk in Washington, DC. To this I say: It's all true. My power is immense. My enemies will be crushed. My bling shines fierce. Mwahahahahaha. Sort of. Mike Calderone's story on Journolist basically gets the list serv right, though the Politico headline, the Drudge headline, and so forth get it quite wrong. There are a lot of off the record list servs floating around Washington, DC. There's one for bloggers, three for feminists, a couple for national security reporters, a handful for progressive organizers, and dozens more I know nothing about. There are a lot of list servs where people talk about things that aren't related to politics. It may surprise you to know this, but the members of the IFA often communicate privately over a Google group rather than publicly on our (admittedly awesome) blog. This is part of a broader, and admittedly worrying, societal trend in which loose communities of people communicate privately over e-mail.Journolist is meant to serve a very specific purpose that's actually related to my experience building this blog. The work of this site has always been to illuminate standard political reporting with expert policy commentary. In that, I've been helped by the many experts who have adopted the medium as their own: Mark Thoma, Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman, Matthew Holt, Peter Orszag, Andrew Gelman, Larry Bartels, Dani Rodrik, John Sides, among others. As a journalist, it's hard to always know who to call or which questions to ask. The joy of those blogs is that I don't have to guess what experts think is important: They simply explain what they think is important and I can use, or follow-up on, the information. 
