DISHIES AND TPMERS

Josh Marshall has just done a survey of his readers. It’s an interesting contrast with mine. First off, the similarities. Josh’s readers are 81 percent male; mine are 85 percent male. This is no big surprise: for some reason, political opinion sites (and magazines) always skew toward the testosteroned. 35 percent of my readers are 35 or under; 29 percent of Josh’s are. 36 percent of my readers are over 45; 46 percent of Josh’s are. In other words, my readers are slightly younger on average than Josh’s. Wealth? 29 percent of Dish readers earn $50,000 or less a year; Josh’s demographic is identical. 35 percent of Dishies earn $100,000 or more; 34 percent of Josh’s do. Politics? Polarization is real. 60 percent of Josh’s readers call themselves “liberal”; only 6 percent of Dishies do the same; 12 percent of Josh’s readership call themselves “New Democrats,” while 9.4 percent of mine call themselves “center-left.” I have more Independents and way more conservatives. My center-right/conservative total amounts to 61 percent of the total; Josh’s “liberal/New Democrat” coalition amounts to 72 percent of his readers. My readership, in other words, is slightly more diverse in political opinion than Josh’s – but not an awful lot. That either implies, I guess, that Josh is preaching more to the choir than I do and is more ideologically homogeneous in his views – or it means that liberals are more open-minded and read people with whom they might often disagree. I’m not sure that any of this amounts to much. But it is interesting. Meanwhile, I’m thinking: what if Josh and I combined in a pitch to advertizers? We’d cover the entire spectrum of opinion.