PSA

Megan McArdle's blog is experiencing some mysterious technical problems, and has been temporarily relocated here.

Comments

She was great as Annie on Broadway. But as a blogger, notsomuch.

Wait, that's wrong: I read Jane Galt to better understand what the world looks like to obtuse blowhards.

Posted by Jimmmm | May 18, 2007 10:08 AM

Jimmmm, you're forgetting the very important fact that Megan McArdle is in Matt Yglesias's extended social circle, and so uncritical cross-promotion is to be expected.

Posted by Christmas | May 18, 2007 10:35 AM

Yeah, Matt, why aren't you more critical of Megan's blog having a new temporary home? Sellout.

Posted by too many steves | May 18, 2007 10:37 AM

Thanks! I was wondering where she went.

Posted by Dave B. | May 18, 2007 10:58 AM

Yeah, Matt, why aren't you more critical of Megan's blog having a new temporary home? Sellout.

It's not that Yglesias should be critical of McArdle having a temporary new home; it's that one doesn't typically expect a lefty blogger to actively hype the work of right-wingers, especially those as unremittingly disingenuous as Megan McArdle. In other words, there's plenty about McArdle's work to criticize, and precious little to recommend, and yet here's Matt Yglesias tacitly recommending it.

The simple explanation is that Matt isn't hyping Megan's blog because he really thinks it's full of valuable insight, but because he's socially acquainted with her and extending a personal courtesy to someone in his social circle. The problem is that, as a professional political blogger and pundit, Yglesias is tacitly endorsing the quality of McArdle's work, even if on some level he thinks he's just doing a favor for a friend (or a friend of a friend).

Political bloggers aren't nearly as physically removed from each other as their medium would suggest; in fact, as Yglesias's house full of bloggers-who-hang-out-with-other-houses-of-bloggers demonstrates, relationships between bloggers - even, and especially, high traffic, professional bloggers - can get pretty inbred. This isn't problematic in and of itself. What does become an issue is the question of where a blogger like Yglesias's professional output becomes influenced by social interactions (see, for example, the bizarre spectacle of Spencer Ackerman plugging the pro-war propaganda shilled by his friend, neocon Eli Lake). This sort of thing has been a scourge of print and television punditry for ages - think of the reluctance of fellow commentators to ask Novak anything about Plame, or David Broder's infamous comment about Clinton "trashing the place" - and it's remarkable that similar phenomena are starting to develop in a medium that's largely place-independent. Political reporting and punditry, in any medium, really shouldn't be affected by a fear of awkwardness at the next dinner party.

Posted by Christmas | May 18, 2007 6:47 PM