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Outrage Blogging
Via McMegan, Laura at 11D has a very good post about the evolution of the blogosphere over the past few years. In particular, she mentions something I've noticed too:
3. Norms and practices. Bloggers have undermined the blogosphere. Bloggers do not link to each other as much as they used to. It's a lot of work to look for good posts elsewhere and most bloggers became burnt out. Drezner and Farrell had a theory that even small potato bloggers would have their day in the sun, if they wrote something so great that it garnered the attention of the big guys. But the big guys are too burnt out to find the hidden gems. So, good stuff is being written all the time, and it isn't bubbling to the top.
I write as much as I ever have, but in my posts I link more to news sources and less to other bloggers than I used to. I'm not sure why. Part of it might be related to another evolution I've noticed: the political blogosphere increasingly seems to latch on to four or five outrages of the day that suck up most of its attention. It seems like every blog I read posts about the same few political nano-scandals every day, and since I mostly find this stuff kind of boring I don't link to it very much.
I don't know for sure if that's a real trend or not. My memory is famously fuzzy and I have a hard time really remembering what things were like four years ago compared to today. But whatever the case, the end result is less engagement with other bloggers and less conversational tone to the blogosphere. That may or may not be entirely a bad thing, but I kind of miss it.
I've been reading your and
I've been reading your and Benen's blogs and the stuff you link to for years now, and what I've noticed about many other blogs is their increasingly gossipy nature. They focus on which blogger said what about who and how patently unfair that is, or they harp on a politician who provides fodder every day (like, say Michelle Bachmann), even though giving that person any thought at all is a waste of emotional energy, in my opinion.
This seems like a good time to thank you for keeping your blog about policy (except when necessary) and for allowing intellect to supersede sensationalistic hackishness. It warms even the blackened and shriveled heart of a liberal wonk.
Meh. I certainly enjoy
Meh. I certainly enjoy being pointed to other good writing on the internets, but I think it's a good thing that you "link more to news sources and less to other bloggers than [you] used to." Pretty soon, newspapers will be dead and no one will be on the ground telling us what is actually happening. We don't need to speed the process up by focusing more on the analysis.
More pretty pictures!
"I link more to news sources and less to other bloggers than I used to. I'm not sure why."
More pretty pictures, of course.
And the news sites will usually have more variety.
"It seems like every blog I
"It seems like every blog I read posts about the same few political nano-scandals every day, and since I mostly find this stuff kind of boring I don't link to it very much."
Kevin:
I read you most every day. Link to you a fair amount. I know of many blogs that do not focus on the "nano-scandal" of the day and link to them as well.
It seems to me the quote I cite is an indictment of you, more than blogs, if indeed your view is that there should be more blog to blog linking.
At least at Talk Left, we like to think we explore issue beyond the nano-scandal of the day.
For example, we have not written about Sanford, Palin or other silly stuff.
I wish we knew more about health care, but we try to discuss it within outr meager knowledge.
However, on things we do know about and that are important - the Supreme Court, criminal law (Jeralyn and TChris) and constitutional law, we think we make an important contribution.
Please do not tar all blogs with the same brush.
Anononymous post
Sorry, the anonymous comment was from Big Tent Democrat at Talk Left.
Kevin you nailed it in your title. There's way too much outrage
Kevin you nailed it in your title. There's way too much outrage, and not enough substance. How many blogs do I need to tell me that we should all be outraged with John Bolton, Michael Bolton, and John Paul Bolton and the links that do appear are just links to other bloggers telling me exactly the same damned thing.
The outrage is a disservice because it makes everything the same bland outrage soup mush. Armando at TalkLeft doesn't do a whole lot better, they do often focus on different issues, and focus on them in depth, but Armando is so outraged that he lets his posts and comment threads be exercises in shouting down and tossing out transgressors.
The whole exercise is becoming one of ossification. Let's make sure that all the politically correct positions are bronzed and cemented down and then lets set up thousands of sentries ready to pick off any little creep who questions.
Somewhere along the line, the refreshing honesty and bold opinions got lost and political entrenchment became the ruling force.
Links can mean too much of the same
I'll second the first comment (Boliver), that too much of the blogs I read are hardly failing from not linking enough, although it's annoying that Yglesias can't be bothered to place any sites in the design's right-column blogroll. There's too much time noting that so-and-so posted this chart or that quote, and then making much the same point, except of course when it's not taking down people not worth mentioning in the first place.
I'll give Kevin credit in that, as spare as his posts are compared to some others, as often as not it's his post that's being used and originated the chain. All this, too, hardly cheers me up about the prospect of a world without newspapers, just bloggers. That won't be citizen journalism, but rather little or no journalism. My thanks to Kevin for at least always thinking first before posting.
More news available
I'd speculate the reason you link to news sites more than you used to is in part because there are a lot more choices now than a year or two ago. It wasn't that long that the NYTimes content was behind a pay firewall. All the MSM players have their content online now, which wasn't the case a couple of years ago.
Finding the right blogs
'It seems like every blog I read posts about the same few political nano-scandals every day'.
Kevin, maybe you're not reading the right blogs.
I realise a Sydney-based think tank blog about international relations is not going to rush to the top of your reading list, but important and interesting stuff happens in this part of the world. Indonesia, for instance, is about to hold a presidential election:
http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2009/07/02/A-president-for-Indonesia...
Linking
People dont link to me all that often but when they do its usually for a post that has a different or more in depth or more specialized take on a topic. The difference between male and female judges is probably my best example. The second most common is when you can anticipate where the discussion is going and provide a solid post just before the topic explodes. For example if you were writing on iranian elections just before the most recent ones im sure you got a lot of links because you had content no one else had when it was needed. most blogs simply dont have enough original or insightful commentary to justify links to them from big blogs especially when everyone is talking about the same topic. if you need basic facts or very cursory explanation the news blogs provide that with a decent degree of accuracy and good credibility.
Outrage Blogging
You're right, of course. I think it's because, as blogging has become less "cutting edge", bloggers have kind of forgotten what their purpose actually is.
Bloggers, by definition cannot generally do primary source journalism or research. Hell, we don't even have Lexis/Nexis. So the purpose of a blogger is analysis, think pieces, a way of integrating the things we know and the things we think might happen into some kind of coherent way of viewing events and personalities. The best blog post doesn't tell me something I didn't already know, it gave me way of thinking about those things that I hadn't considered.
I'd encourage you to, instead of looking for the same thing in bloggers you look for in mainstream journalism or op/ed, look for points of view and interesting considerations that expand upon your knowledge rather than providing it...
mikey
http://stoopid_stuff.blogspot.com/index.html
Ecology at work ...
As the MSM disintegrate, the A-list bloggers are moving into the vacuum. And guess what? Sarah Palin and the governor with the Argentine firecracker pull in traffic, so that is what the A-list increasingly blogs about.
Meet the new boss, and all that ...
Well done
Oh, man. I was glad to see this post. I was telling someone the other day that I'm all outraged out. I've been making a serious effort to cut blog reading down to twice a day - one AM and one PM browse.
I know someone is going to respond with "but if people don't get outraged, the bad guys win!" Yeah, yeah, I know....but there is SO MUCH to be outraged over, yet nothing ever changes. I've been continuously outraged every since GWB was re-elected in 2004. We voted a new guy in, yet not a damn thing has changed. The government is still owned by bankers and other monied interests. Congress is still congress (the opposite of progress.) For all my outrage, not a damn thing has changed from a year ago except that little dent in my forehead from banging my head on my desk has gotten bigger.
Screw the outrage, go have a glass of wine and some good conversation with friend/SO instead.
Bloggers linking to other bloggers
. . . just increases the noise in the echo chamber.
If you don't have something original to say, then perhaps you ought to just sit on your hands. . . or go out in the garden and play with the cat.
I went over to the comments
I went over to the comments thread at CNN and discovered to my amazement that the vast majority of posters were turned off by the speech. A lot of them claimed to be independents. I am not too worried about the speech.
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