Ms. and Blogging
A minute ago, I took a look at the blogs that Ms. started up after Christine Cupaiuolo stopped blogging for them. It doesn't look like there's much going on at The Smeal Report or A New Leif, and I think that's too bad. What Ms. should have done, and could still do, is recruit someone who's already been blogging for a long time, someone the blogosphere knows who already has an audience, and get her to blog for Ms. Some obvious choices would be Lauren (I know she retired, but perhaps she could be brought back in if it paid), Tiffany, Echidne, anyone from Feministing, Twisty, etc. etc.
Comments
Independence is good
Actually, I think it's better if people stay a bit independent... It keeps people focused and forces them to be creative. l
Paid blogging is rarely as good as labor-of-love blogging.
Blogging and other writing
Now, that's interesting. It seems reasonable. I wonder if this statement is true for writing in general?
True
I would basically agree that labor-of-love blogging is better, but if you are going to pay someone to blog -- and I don't think that's a bad thing -- it's better to get someone who has demonstrated familiarity and mastery of the medium and who already has an audience. Implied in that, of course, is that the entity (e.g., Ms.) wouldn't impose any guidelines about what content the blogger could and could not post. Most bloggers would probably, even if told they had total freedom about what to post, still tailor their content somewhat. But still.