Sullivan on Blogging

I have been a big fan of Andrew Sullivan’s writing for a couple of decades (since his TNR days), and have read his blog pretty regularly for the past four years.  He has an interesting essay up at The Atlantic’s newly redesigned site, “Why I Blog.” From the intro:

This form of instant and global self-publishing, made possible by technology widely available only for the past decade or so, allows for no retroactive editing (apart from fixing minor typos or small glitches) and removes from the act of writing any considered or lengthy review. It is the spontaneous expression of instant thought—impermanent beyond even the ephemera of daily journalism. It is accountable in immediate and unavoidable ways to readers and other bloggers, and linked via hypertext to continuously multiplying references and sources. Unlike any single piece of print journalism, its borders are extremely porous and its truth inherently transitory. The consequences of this for the act of writing are still sinking in.

Solo blogs are a different beast from group blogs; reported blogs different from academic blogs.  But the recognition that the medium changes the way we think and write   and the way we think about writing  applies to those of us who do this as a small part of a larger job just as much to those who blog full-time.  And for at least a few hours each week, we live within this world created by the blogosphere; not quite a conversation, but not quite deep reading either.

His video conversation with Marc Ambinder (a political reporter/blogger) on the subject of blogging is also worth watching. I would be interested to know how OJ readers view the world of blogs circa 2008.