Blogging creates micro-celebrities, even when you’re talking about reporters:
[Blogging has] 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.
Some young bloggers I know take this too far, I think, making their blogs something of a performance (that, I thought, was the one interesting take away from the otherwise awful Emily Gould NYTs Mag cover piece). But it’s something all of us talk about, and all of us have to come to understand.
