So Foreign Policy has a new “frontpage”:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/, with lots and lots of blogs by a variety of international relations and journalists. I’m considerably more optimistic about this stable’s odds over the long run than I was about the last effort to create a quasi-academic superblog ( the now defunct ‘Open University’ at _The New Republic_ ) since they haven’t made the mistake of relying on famous or semi-famous people who have never blogged before, and have lots of other commitments and obligations that are likely to come first. Instead, there are a number of people (Dan Drezner, Marc Lynch, Laura Rozen) who are well known in their own right, but who also have an established track record in blogging. Nor (and again, I think this is a good thing), have they tossed a bunch of very disparate people into a single group blog, instead providing a mixture of some group blogging among people with similar ideological predilections, and some individual. The only disappointment that this leads to is that I’d been quite looking forward to seeing how Stephen Walt and Philip Zelikow handled being blogmates after this “little contretemps”:http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n10/letters.html (read letters 2 and 3) – it would have been entertaining to watch from a distance.
{ 6 comments }
rick 01.06.09 at 8:12 pm
While the addition to Stephen Walt is welcome, its a damn shame that someone like Drezner is getting promoted.
Dan Kervick 01.06.09 at 8:25 pm
It looks like a good blog lineup at FP. But the oddest component, surely, is the “Madam Secretary” blog devoted to bringing “an obsessive eye to all things Hillary.”
geo 01.06.09 at 9:15 pm
The LRB exchange is remarkable for Zelikow’s brazen dishonesty. Philip Shenon’s The Commission paints a shocking picture of Zelikow’s successful attempts to thwart the 9/11 Commission’s investigation, as its Bush-sponsored executive director.
Russell Arben Fox 01.06.09 at 10:20 pm
For what it’s worth, I’ve been told that The New Republic is going to try to launch into blogging again, more along the Foreign Policy model, which itself is borrowed from The Atlantic model. Damon Linker is the only one of their new bloggers to appear as yet, but more will supposedly be rolled out soon.
Jon H 01.08.09 at 5:00 am
“Nor (and again, I think this is a good thing), have they tossed a bunch of very disparate people into a single group blog, instead providing a mixture of some group blogging among people with similar ideological predilections, and some individual.”
Actually, one of the new bloggers, David Rothkopf, has a go at Walt about the Jewish Lobby stuff here.
Ralph Hitchens 01.08.09 at 4:25 pm
Zelikow was well and truly hoist by his own petard. The arrogance of these people — their brazen amnesia about what they said and what they meant!
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