Tag: The Dish Model

Ezra continues the thread:

[B]logging is the more derided medium, but it's unquestionably superior for conveying information. You can give a reader much more on a blog than in an article. But for all that, I'm fiercely committed to articles, because they make sure I'm writing in a way that's accessible to people who don't read the blog — which is, let's face it, the vast, vast majority of the world. So though the technology underlying blogs and articles is beginning to converge, I don't think the forms are going to become one anytime soon. It will always be the case that your regular readers are a small fraction of your pool of potential readers, and the likely outcome here is that more and more organizations end up running two kinds of content: one aimed at regulars and the other written for drop-ins.

I just believe that the web is going to win over print (duh) and that the web favors an intimate form of discourse rather than an institutional one. Facebook illustrates this. We relate to individuals online, not organizations or collectives. And so, in the long run, if a personal blog can actually be a filter for articles, reporting, conversation, then I think it has a future much greater than some think. Ezra's right that it's not imminent. But my gut tells me it's inevitable.

A reader writes:

I noticed while reading your post that the Dish is sort of a mirror of the “composite state” or republic, mixing Monarchy (Sully), Oligarchy (Patrick, Chris, Conor, Zoe) and Democracy (readers). Just like our own system of checks and balances, the mixture of contributors provides anchors and much needed reality checks to each element. It blends the strengths of the individual, the small group, and the vast collective while helping the manage the weaknesses of each.

Well, that’s the hope: what the ancients called “a mixed regime.” But it’s the result of no theory; just gradual improvisation and experiment.

Farhad Manjoo notes an overlap:

The design shifts—with blogs looking more like magazines, and magazines looking more like blogs—aren’t just superficial. These changes in presentation are collapsing all distinctions between “blog posts” and “articles.” Over the last few days I contacted various bloggers and editors at big sites around the Web to ask how they define each term. The answers I got were surprisingly diverse—while each of these organizations has its own rules for what it calls a “blog post” and an “article,” the rules aren’t at all consistent across newsrooms. What’s more, the lines are blurring—blog posts are looking more like articles, and articles are looking more like blog posts.

Further thoughts over at Chloe Veltman’s place.

I’ve thought of the Dish as a blogazine for quite a while now. The model we’ve groped our way toward combines the agility of a pond-skater with the ability to deep dive at any moment. And its reader-generated content makes it a product of a collective mind as well as an individual one, a bull-session as well as an individual’s thinking out loud. Who knew this evolution was possible even a year or two ago?

And I have to say, our new “read on” feature has helped us evolve this more quickly and intuitively than I thought it would.

See?

You get the choice to skim or dive in – at your leisure, and with minimal hassle. Then the links help you explore even more, if your nose takes you there. So the Dish becomes as much a mediator as an individual thinker, as much a collective mind as a single one, as much a biased broadcast as a communal debate. With videos, art, quotes, thoughts, provocations, jokes, and photography thrown in for good measure – some prompted by you, some by me, some by Patrick, Chris, Conor and Zoe. And all, in the end, channeled through what’s left of my fried frontal cortex. That’s much more than this blog was in, say, 2002.

But that’s the joy of this new medium. We still don’t know where it will go next. And we’re all  improvising like mad. What’s not to love?

Jonathan caps off the Dish's anniversary week:

Andrew was no longer editor when I arrived at the New Republic in 1997, so I knew him only from his written work. And, to be honest, I was not such a fan. Yes, he was a brilliant writer. But he was too much of a provocateur for my taste–somebody who seemed to relish outrageousness for the sake of outrageousness. 

Then I got to know Andrew a little bit. And I came to appreciate what I suspect most Daily Dish readers already know: Andrew simply has an uniquely aggressive mind. He genuinely enjoys challenging what other people think, even when that means challenging himself. That's what makes his blog such a bracing and illuminating read: You get to see this intellectual process as it is taking place. 

 

I've been arguing with Andrew Sullivan online since "online" existed. Andrew has invented and defined so many of the Internet's creative possibilities: for politics, for journalism, and for personal reflection. The rest of us admire or criticize or both, but ultimately … we emulate. In a decade that started with a second 1941 and ended with a second 1929, Andrew has been a voice that future historians will quote endlessly and tirelessly as a representatives of the thoughts and emotions – passions and regrets – brilliant insights and terrible mistakes of this generation of Americans.

Read David at FrumForum.

Jonathan joins the party:

I do remember very well what the world was like for political junkies before the Daily Dish, and it pretty much stunk compared to the world now.  Then as now, there were plenty of long-form articles and essays.  But intelligent political conversation?

I remember when I first watched Crossfire on CNN when it was new, and thinking it was more intelligent than whatever else was available (no, really.  Not joking)..  People watched the McLaughlin Group because it was more entertaining than other political shows.  And then Sullivan and Kaus showed up, and as far as I was concerned most TV talk shows became instantly obsolete.  They weren't nearly as intelligent or entertaining as the blogs. And then, the blogs got better, and Andrew Sullivan deserves a lot of credit for that, too.

So from Plain Blog, a hearty Mazel Tov to the Daily Dish, and I hope to be reading it for a long time to come.

Is he doing this for free? So wondered the crass capitalist in me when I started soaking up Andrew’s daily musings, genre-benders, analyses, hiccups, tours de force. Then: When does he eat? Then: When do his dogs eat? And occasionally: Are they ghostwriting for him? Much of the time I read in awe of his output. But most of the time it’s simple admiration for his pit-bull persistence, his moral compass, and his catholic range of interests. We don’t always agree—for example, I believe Trig Palin is animatronic—but isn’t that the point? I don’t tune in to have my opinions reinforced. I visit the Dish for the same reasons everyone else does: to be challenged, to laugh, to learn, to nod, and to get my back up. And, of course, to reinforce my embarrassment over not being able to grow a real beard. Here’s to the past ten years of showing the rest of us how to blog, Andrew.

Read Grant at Commonweal.