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I've been reading blogs since 2001, but I can still remember when the word sounded anachronistic, like the first time I heard about fish tacos, another innovation that enriches my life. These days, the medium is present within the most renowned newspapers and magazines in the country, features freelance blog pros who've built reputations and livelihoods around their sites, and still welcomes amateurs who enjoy low barriers to entry in a worldwide conversation that never ends.
Here I want to survey some of the bloggers I've most enjoyed over the years (three at a time), and comment on how their talents and innovations have shaped a medium. My survey is incomplete by necessity. But I owe a personal debt to all these folks -- they've taught me how to do this -- and my feeling is that every blogger owes them thanks.
I'll proceed in the order that I discovered them -- here's Part I, featuring Glenn Reynolds, Andrew Sullivan, and Mickey Kaus.
Glenn Reynolds (a.k.a Instapundit)
-- Prof. Reynolds opened my eyes to something that seems obvious now,
but wasn't at the time: the possibility of the link. In fact, I
discovered many of the folks I read today via links on Instapundit, and
when I began blogging myself, his style informed my own, as it has so
many bloggers. As one of the folks who took up the medium at the
beginning, Prof. Reynolds and a few others powerfully shaped the ethic
of the blogosphere: link to what you criticize; fess up to mistakes,
quickly correcting them in updates rather than pretending they never
happened; solicit feedback from readers, and harness their Army of
Davids power; welcome new bloggers, and generally send your readers out
to worthy competitors. It didn't have to be this way. Thanks, Glenn,
for helping to make it so.
Andrew Sullivan -- A singular talent and personality, Mr. Sullivan has written at length
on his approach to blogging. He is the rare blogger success story who
is as adept at the essay form, and capable of writing a damn good book.
I'll focus here on what I've learned from his blog, The Daily Dish. The
foremost thing is his insight that blogging has more in common than one
might at first imagine with broadcasting. Is anyone better than he is
at streaming content that draws readers back throughout the day? Mr.
Sullivan is also a master of the branded feature -- a recurring
constant that gives endless iterations on a theme. View from Your
Window. The Yglesias Award. The recent series of reader e-mails on
abortion (does anyone mine reader e-mail so compellingly?). Another
feature is Dissent of the Day, and it exemplifies one of my favorite
things about Mr. Sullivan's approach: his willingness to air opinions
different from his own, even if their authors are vituperate and
critical of what he is writing. None of us is perfect, Andrew included,
but this commitment tends to mitigate any mistaken positions that he
takes, and is a necessary precondition for the large, diverse audience
he continues to attract, especially on a blog that strives to reflect
the evolving thoughts of its author, and is therefore inevitably
mistaken at times. I've heard a lot of folks criticize The Daily Dish
for one reason or another during all its years of existence, but I've
never heard it referred to as a cocoon. That's an impressive feat, and
a credit to its author and readers alike.
Mickey Kaus --
Long one of my favorites, Mr, Kaus is able to pack more substance into
less space than any writer I know. He taught me how to cultivate topics
to become obsessive about, returning to them again and again over time
to add new twists. The practice enables longtime readers to develop an
impressively nuanced understanding of given subjects--I've certainly
learned a lot about the idea of social equality, immigration, welfare
reform, The Los Angeles Times, and Arnold Schwarzenegger from the
collected works of Mr. Kaus. He is also adept at cultivating in-jokes
among regular Kausfiles readers, though one sometimes gets the sense
that the internal editor he renders in italics on the page is only
half-joking. More substantially, Mickey possesses a fearless streak
that I admire, perhaps the product of a life spent as a "heretic"
liberal. Never mind the conventional wisdom, or ideological cocooning,
or what is deemed by some as the outward bounds of reasonable discourse
-- Mickey makes up his own mind, says what he believes, almost always
offers nuanced, intellectually honest arguments, considers and airs
dissenting views, and refuses to back down unless his mind is changed.
Sometimes he is vindicated spectacularly; other times he is
spectacularly wrong. Either way, he has spent the debate advocating for
honestly held opinions, a mode that serves us well over the long haul.
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