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Ever-Larger Media Matt

23 Apr 2007 10:37 am

Okay. The time has come to let you all in on some changes forthcoming soon in my life and on this blog. Most notably, I'm leaving my job at The American Prospect to take a position at The Atlantic Monthly where my primary responsibility is going to be . . . producing this blog. If you read Andrew Sullivan's site -- which is now part of the Atlantic web operation -- that's a very good model for how this is going to work. In short, however, there's actually relatively little to expect in terms of changes. The site will have a snazzy new design (featuring, among other things, Atlantic branding, but no cartoon) and a new URL, but the current URL will redirect you automatically to the new one, and people who subscribe to RSS feeds shouldn't need to change anything. You can expect the same eclectic mix of politics and other stuff that you've come to expect, though in exchange for a salary I think I'm going to try harder to avoid typos.

Logistically, I'm going to leave this afternoon on a trip to some undisclosed locations. You can expect posting to continue, albeit at a reduced rate, until Friday. Friday evening, the DNS propagation of the new URL will being, meaning that over the weekend more-and-more people will start getting redirected to the new site (which will incorporate all of the old site's posts, archives, etc.). By one week for today, everyone should be pointed to the new site and posting will be up to its usual pace as I start my first day on the new job.

Pulling away from the technical details, I should say that while I'm excited about the new gig, the downside will be leaving my previous home at TAP. The Atlantic's offer was far too good an opportunity to turn down, but it's been an honor and a pleasure to work these past three and a half years at a place filled with smart, wonderful people dedicated to advancing worthy ideas. I'm not by any means the first progressive writer who got my start at the Prospect, which has shown a unique and underappreciated commitment to building the next generation of progressive media, and thanks to what Ezra Klein's accomplished, I can leave certain that I won't be the last. At any rate, I think you'll really enjoy the new site once it's up and running. Obviously, none of this is possible without you, the readers, and I thank you all for putting up with yet another URL-and-format switch.

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Comments (148)

Congrats

Congratulations, hope you shake the Atlantic up! A lot. You do realize the kinder, gentler neo-con den you're walking into, right?

Are you sleeping with Sullivan? Cause he'll break your heart Matt and we might be around to pick up the pieces.

"Logistically, I'm going to leave this afternoon on a trip to some undisclosed locations."

Last I checked, Dick Cheney doesn't live in Santa Fe.

And congrats on continuing to make the most of your first-mover advantage in the blogosphere.

Grats, plus grats on your book deal.

Congratulations. Now if they would only fire racist-enabling Ross Douthat (whom you unaccountably claim as a friend), The Atlantic would really be making some progress.

A big loss for American Prospect.

Hope the pay is good.

I have the feeling someday in the future, like maybe in 5 years, we'll all be saying "I knew him back when he was some obscure blogger".

does this mean that you will finally have to use some sort of spell checker on a regular basis?

congratulations all the same -- even with the occasional misspellings, your blog is a good read.

1. Demand a cartoon. One with you dunking. No way should that fuck Sullivan get one when you don't.

2. Comments? Still happs?

Congratulations dude.

I would say you are a good fit for The Atlantic, which has consistently been one of the best publications in the English language for a long time (30 years in my memory, but possibly the entire 150 of their existence if my scanning of the archives is accurate). They need an infusion of fresh ideas at the moment though and your perspective should be a good one - as long as you are really up to dealing with their factcheckers!

Cranky

What about the book? I'm waiting for the Yglesias Doctrine ...

Comments will continue and work continues apace on the book.

It wouldn't be a new year if we didn't get a new URL for Yglesias.

My two hopes for the new site - comments remain enabled, and no spell- or grammar-checker.

Congratulations, Matt. You better keep doing posts about how you can beat up any sixty-year-old.

Tell Sully we said hi!

And congrats on continuing to make the most of your first-mover advantage in the blogosphere.

You're mean. In the real world, my blog only continues to grow relatively-less-prominent compared to other blogs.

Awesome, congratulations. But I advise you not to start proofreading. There's no way you'll catch them all, and the only reason people tolerate them is under the assumption that you just don't care. Once you start working at it, the wons that slip threw will be all the moore embarrassing.

which will incorporate all of the old site's posts, archives, etc.

BTW, this begs the question, WHICH "old site's" posts, archive's etc.?

Congratulations.

Hope you do not lose your intellectual honesty like so many others before you who have gone on to become stenographers at mega salaries.

Why the hell no Terry Colon cartoon? Someone not reading the fine print on his contract?

i was under the impression that no one who lived in your house had a "job;" are they going to let you stay?

i was under the impression that no one who lived in your house had a "job;" are they going to let you stay?

You consider producing this blog a "job", howard? I mean, it's something they will be paying him for, but still.

"the DNS propagation of the new URL will being"

Congratulations. Looking forward to that new no-typo policy.

Now if they would only fire racist-enabling Ross Douthat (whom you unaccountably claim as a friend),

Douthat's not the one filling in for Sullivan with the genuinely weird and troubling views on race. The Galt wrote yer classic "Poor oppressed rich white boys" post on the Duke matter a couple of days ago, in which she asserted that race wasn't issue in the justice system but relative penury was. (I'm always surprised when she turns out to much more SoCon than even pseudo libertarian. The contrast between her position on this and that of Balko--a sincere libertarian who is much less likely, I think, to find many Dem programs acceptable if not admirable than the Galt--is striking. And disappointing.)

"which will incorporate all of the old site's posts, archives, etc."

BTW, this begs the question, WHICH "old site's" posts, archive's etc.?

Actually, it begs no questions at all. Try to remember that you are talking to a philosophy major.

Congratulations Matt. Good luck and continued success at the Atlantic.

Congrats - I'm glad a wider audience will get to enjoy your political commentary. I do hope, though, that the gravitas of the Atlantic doesn't dissuade you from posts on indie rock, attack squirrels, Disney princesses, or DC's Chinese food infrastructure.

Awesome news. Remember your OBF.

From someone who usually lurks: Congrats on this, a wonderful and big move. Looking forward to the redirect!

but no cartoon

Why?

Is it too late to change that aspect of the deal?

Maybe you need a better agent?

Demand a cartoon. It's the best thing about Sullivan's blog. Perhaps one of you fencing (or otherwise dueling) Marty Peretz...

Seriously - congrats on the new job and have a nice vacation/trip.

or DC's Chinese food infrastructure.

After that last thread, Reihan Salam recommended Mr. Chen's in Woodley Park, which turns out to deliver to my house even though I live nowhere near Woodley Park. It's totally adequate, i.e. excellent by DC standards.

"You're mean."

I prefer to think of myself as "acid tongued". But regardless, I think the fact that I root for your continued success makes up for it.

Glad to hear the good news, Matt. I'm so happy that such intelligent people are finally getting a chance to display their talents on behalf of institutions that can better support their work. This happened to Glenn Greenwald a couple months ago, and now it's happened to another of my favorites. Congrats!

Congrats, MY. And excellent answer to Petey. Dudes, I remember those good old days when Drum, Matt & Reynolds owned the blogosphere readership...all seven of us.

That's good news, congrats

Wow Petey, your perspective on the universe is damned enviable.

Congratulations!

Demand a cartoon.

I hate that cartoon.

Congratulations, Matt.

Great news!

(Can you put in a word at the Atlantic to bring back the crossword puzzles by Henry Rathvon and Emily Cox? [I know you can get them online but it isn't the same...])

Surely you could demand a better cartoon?

Congratulations!

Congratulations on the new job. You're an excellent blogger, and deserve to get paid for your work.

(Will blog commentors ever be paid for their work? What about those of us with "first mover advantage!!")

Congratulations! I miss the Atlantic. I mysteriously got a free subscription for a while, but I think that ended. Might have to pony up for one.

The Galt wrote yer classic "Poor oppressed rich white boys" post on the Duke matter a couple of days ago, in which she asserted that race wasn't issue in the justice system but relative penury was.

SCMT: I'm not saying you're mistaken here, because I haven't been following Megan's guest-blogging stints, but this would be a big surprise, since not two weeks ago she was trying to explain to the right-leaning readers of her own site that "Hey! Racism is still salient!" To advert to a blog comments cliche, could you provide a link? I'm curious.

Congrats! You should insist on a Boston office, or at least a gift card for a coffee shop with wifi somewhere in Harvard Square, despite the fact that the rest of the Atlantic has moved, I think down there with you in D.C.

While you are at the Atlantic, can you persuade them to offer up a few free articles now and again to those of us reading out here on the internets? Delay them for a month if you must, but release them eventually if you really expect them to make any wider impact. Maybe they would convince me, a former subscriber, to resubscribe. Maybe not, but it's possible, and far more likely than now with pretty much everything locked up on their site.

Wow, it seems like only a few weeks ago that I followed a link to a blog by a college student named Matthew Yglesias, and I wondered if he was any relation to the teenage novelist, Rafael. And over the years, Matt graduated and has gone from one success to another and now is becoming a genuine bigshot.
And I'm still at the same job and still passing the time reading blogs.

God, I hate you, Matt.

Just kidding, of course. Congratulations! Along with being very smart and having most of the right positions on the issues, you're a master of the medium of blogging.

While you are at the Atlantic, can you persuade them to offer up a few free articles now and again to those of us reading out here on the internets?

Suffice it to say that broader changes to the Atlantic's new media operation are under way, and my hiring is part of a larger picture that I'm fairly sure will also include more of the print magazine going free online.

Surely you could demand a better cartoon?

I'm totally against all cartoons of writers. Everyone should just learn to live with it, or else I'll need to deploy a bit of the old smacky-face.

Congrats! What about formal articles?

Hopefully there will be a lot of full-length print articles in the offing too. I look forward to seeing the stodgy old traditional readership's reaction to the enfant terrible.

Good luck.

You've got a lot going for you---you're a smart dude who also knows how to write.

Since the journamalism folks only look at the latter, the former is highly undervalued.

Beaten to the punch.

What's the problem, Matt? Did you have some kind of a traumatic incident with an amusement park caricaturist? Did the drawing make you look fat?

Congrats, Matt. I have no doubt you'll do as a great a job for Atlantic Monthly as you did for American Prospect. They made a great choice.

Jeralyn

Good for you, Matt. You and Josh Marshall are the two most consistently interesting progressive commentators at the moment.

Marshall may be in line for the Woodward/Bernstein of his generation with his Muckraker work. I wonder if that makes you the Broder?

Congratulations!

Congrats, Matt; you'll go a lot farther than the Wiz.

But will you still be eponymous?

What everyone else said. Many, many deserved congratulations. Douthat looks to be the main beneficiary of this move, as it seems he'll be getting at least some of your traffic. But will they make you loose the slogan? Will you still be proudly eponymous? Or will you formally and finally embrace your true nom de guerre (BMM) under The Altantic's masthead?

PS. To aver to Matt as the next Broder is to call him an asshole in the sincerest and most offensive way possible.

I think I'm going to try harder to avoid typos

Friday evening, the DNS propagation of the new URL will being

I guess the fact that two correctly-typed sentences intervened between these is a positive step.

Seriously, though, congratulations on your well-deserved new platform.

Congratulations.

I'm a non-commenting but loyal reader who started reading you when you were still writing from Harvard, was it. It's been a pleasure to watch your development.

I'm one of those liberals who has been shocked over the last several decades by The Atlantic's decided turn toward the right, especially in the cover stories they've chosen to feature. But I'm happy to see you accept this offer, even happier that they made it to you. This is what the left/liberal blogisphere has been all about - to be able to see young, unabashed, unbowed, and unapologetic liberals like yourself finaly make their way into the SCLM so that it will become less so-called...

Good news for all concerned.

I second or third the "which archives" question, and renew my suggestion (from the time of the last site move) that you simply get an intern to take care of a unified archives project.

Oh yeah, well-wishes as well.

I'm totally against all cartoons of writers. Everyone should just learn to live with it, or else I'll need to deploy a bit of the old smacky-face.

Careful, now. You may have just given Jonah Goldberg a new idea for a chapter in his book (he's still writing that book, right?) on the violent, fascistic tendences of progressive bloggers.

Seriously, though, if you do have lay down the law here, can you please do it in your traditional manner? The drunken knife fight.

Congratulations. Very well deserved.

That's cool, although it's lame you're going to be working at the same site as the "Steve Saileresqe" (you know what I mean) Andrew Sullivan.

Also, can you make it so your RSS feeds have all the content, not just the excerpts, so I can read them in my RSS reader. You can put ads in 'em, you know.

I want a cartoon!

Also, can you make it so your RSS feeds have all the content, not just the excerpts, so I can read them in my RSS reader. You can put ads in 'em, you know.

Well, obviously, this sort of thing is now going to be handled by the Atlantic Media Group's fine business team. I note that Sullivan currently has full-text RSS feeds.

What can I add to the chorus of adulation?

Many congratulations.

I hope you will continue to mix the criticism-of-US-foreign-policy posts and the can-you-suggest-books-about-americans-who-whore-abroad posts.

Don't go wobbly on bashing Peretz and his chorus.

And can we now have our Big Media Matt T-Shirts-&-Mugs?

Is that the same Atlantic Monthly which gave Mearshimer and Walt the go-ahead to do an article on the Israel Lobby -- and then didn't have the balls to publish it?

Sigh.

They keep gobbling up all the blogs I like. It's almost like a ..er.. conspiracy.

Except that the New York Review of Books is still willing to publish pieces by George Soros. So the little guy and common man still has a voice.

Congratulations.

Congrats to Matt.

Screw you yglesias

Congrats

Love the Atlantic, another reason to continue forking over the money.

If Bob Wright doesn't mind, could you and Ross start some kind of BloggingHeads at the Atlantic so that the NRO version gets pushed farther down the list?

I am so happy for you, Matt. Wherever you are, i will find you to continue to enjoy your writing.
I hope you get a huge raise as well.
Congratulations.

I've followed your insightful commentary through many iterations now. I always appreciate and enjoy it. Best wishes, Matt. I look forward to the next chapter. Keep up the great work.

Congratulations. You deserve it. Smart move from the Atlantic Monthly. Maybe this means that TAP is going to hire a woman, no?

Congratulations, Matt. It's quite an honor.

I read my first Atlantic Monthly when I was 15 -- in 1965. The magazine was my introduction to John Barth and Jorge Luis Borges, two fellas not that well-known at the time. I saved those old issues from the sixties -- they're fallin apart yellow at this stage, but I've kept 'em. My favorite is the yellow cover for Svetlana Aliluyeva's piece.

Have fun.

I feel rather like the dumb parent who never graduated high school watching their smart kid graduate college. Of course, the fantasy is not helped by the fact that I am three years your junior.

In any case: Bravo, well done!

Al, actually, i'm riffing off matthew's own use of the term "job" in the posting; i would say that this blog is a "job," but it's not "alienated labor" in the marxist sense!

PS. the things i do to distract myself from the Man U injury plague at fullback....

I'm totally against all cartoons of writers. Everyone should just learn to live with it, or else I'll need to deploy a bit of the old smacky-face.

I'm in favor of cartoons of writers, and I will fight you.

Congrats!

Interesting move. Sullivan if I recall correctly is now a senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly or some such? Are you getting a simliar title, and contributing print peices to the magazine, or is it just going to the same blog except with an The Atlantic ticker on top?

As a conservative subscriber to the Atlantic I think this is a great move. Much better than the addition of Sullivan which has never made any sense to me.

Congrats Matt. Yours is my favorite lefty blog and one from which I have learned a great deal.

This is good news indeed; congratulations.

well played sir. Congrats on the new gig.

May your power continue to increase! At this rate, you'll have a Green Lantern ring by the time you're 40.

I hope your contract doesnt prevent you from running a sports blog on the side. Dont forget about our Zards!! Anyhoo, congratulations. As one above commentator mentioned, a little continued local flavor will add positive texture to the blog.

Chapeau! Great news.

Let's hope this means you get better quality trolls too.
Congrats,
-J

The Atlantic *rocks*. You'll fit right in, Matt. Congratulations.

Congratulations. As I said a long time ago, this was inevitable.

Please stop vlogging immediately.

Congratulations.

Well done, Yglesias. The Atlantic is a good fit for you...

Congratulations! That's the kind of thing that could make a guy want to shell out for a subscription again.

Congratulations on a well-deserved change.

Congrats, we'll try and swing hits your way for your new venture.

Congratulations. I'm a longtime Atlantic subscriber, and I'm glad to see my taste in blogs is validated by their hiring you.

If, in your new position of closeness to power, you could maybe drop some hints to the managment about improving the magazine's current god-awfully-boring art direction (i.e, bring back the Guy Billout pieces), you'd be doing the world a favor.

(Disclosure: as it happens, I contributed infrequently as an illustrator to the Atlantic throughout the 1990s. I'm not begging for your intercession here on my part (although that might be nice too ;)))

Congrats, congrats.

Also, the cartoon hates you back.

"Sleeping with Sullivan"? How rude!
Our Matt isn't into barebacking. And I trust he'll keep his distance from Patient Less Than Zero in any context.

Giacomo-
You don't like Istvan Banyai?

Congrats from a Cavs fan who hopes this takes some of the sting out of the Wizards' troubles for you.

What you really need to do at the Atlantic is persuade them to put short fiction back in the book!

One of the first tasks in your new job will be ..er..managing the expectations of your new bosses at Atlantic Monthly.

So point out to them that CBS paid $15 million for Katie Couric and --seven months later --their Evening News ratings are still deep in the toilet.

heh heh heh

See http://www.philly.com/inquirer/entertainment/20070422_Gail_Shister___CBS_evening_blues.html

Some money quotes:
---------
"CBS executives deny it, but there's a growing feeling within the network that Katie Couric is an expensive, unfixable mistake. "
---------
"It's a disaster. Everybody knows it's not working. CBS may not cut her loose, but I guarantee you, somebody's thinking about it. We're all hunkered down, waiting for the other shoe to drop."
---------
"Couric, 50, draws fewer viewers than did avuncular "interim" anchor Bob Schieffer, 20 years her senior. Much of the feature-oriented format she debuted with is gone, as is her first executive producer, Rome Hartman.

"The broadcast is an abject failure, by any measure," says Rich Hanley, director of graduate programs at the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University.
...CBS Evening News this season averages 7.319 million total viewers, down 5 percent from the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen Media Research."

Also, hopefully Matthew won't fall into the Katie Couric school of blogging:

I have to dial down my screen a tad, so Matt's bright future doesn't burn out any circuits up in this joint.

Sunglasses advised for all Yglesias fans.

Matt,

Just remember that Henry James used to write for the Atlantic, and you'll never measure up to him.

Seriously though, congratulations.

Congratulations. This is sure to improve the Atlantic, which I had given up on since that God-awful French dude examines America piece.

Matt, congratulations. Just this past month I learned after all these years that Corby Kummer is a woman. I have yet to figure out how Benjamin Schwarz gets all his reading in. Maybe you could talk them into bringing back fiction -- at least fiction labelled as such -- or, at the very least, make the annual fiction issue part of the subscription package.

Can you and Sully fight now? That would be fun.

The thought of a Matt Yglesias cartoon was just too good. I couldn't resist.

(Oh, c'mon. The hoodie and 'Zards swag is damn funny.)

Cartoon suggestion:

http://www.stcustards.free-online.co.uk/mepic.gif

Hero to 2 generations. (Why not a 3rd?)

That's very nicely done, Sangfroid! Sara in the background is a nice touch.

Congrats. Atlantic Monthly couldn't have picked a finer blogger, unless they had picked me and I were actually a blogger.

As to the typos, it wouldn't be a MY blog without them. If nothing else, they will give future historians something to puzzle over when analyzing political commentary in the early twenty-first century.

Just remember that Henry James used to write for the Atlantic, and you'll never measure up to him.

Yes. Look behind you, you are still but a man!

The thought of a Matt Yglesias cartoon was just too good. I couldn't

Awesome.

It's about time somebody snapped you up.

Big ups.

That's awesome, sangfroid. I particularly like the trash hoop. But where's the Agent Zero love?