Michelle [1]reports getting this e-mail from the Washington Post:
Aspiring pundits across the country have the chance to be “America’s Next Great Pundit” by entering The Washington Post’s political columnist competition.
Starting today The Washington Post opinions section is asking people around the country to tell us why they deserve to publish their opinions in The Washington Post and be the next Dana Milbank or Eugene Robinson. Ten contestants will be picked from among all the entrants, and then the field will by narrowed down by rounds of challenges testing the skills a modern pundit must possess. They’ll have to write on deadline, hold their own on video, and field questions from Post readers. After each round, a panel of Post personalities and reader votes will help determine who gets another chance at a byline and who has to shut down their laptop. The ultimate winner will get the opportunity to write a 13-week column that may appear in the print and/or online editions of The Washington Post.
She asks:
Who wants to be “the next Dana Milbank or Eugene Robinson?”
My prediction: Not many.
The WaPo conflates exposure with greatness. Exposure did not make Paul Reubens [2] great. Nor does it do much for Dana Milbank. On the other hand, the WaPo’s greatest pundit, Charles Krauthammer, is hardly a product of the WaPo farm system.
Mean while in the blogosphere, William A. Jacobson, Legal Insurrection [3], posted this gem:
Thanks a Million!
Sometime early yesterday morning, I received my one millionth visit. Eleven months and two weeks after my first post on October 12, 2008.
I hope the first million is the hardest. It has been mostly fun, but not easy.
When I started this blog, I really didn’t know what I was getting into. I took to the internet out of sheer frustration and alarm at the mass delusion gripping the nation in October 2008. The modern equivalent of the tulip mania from centuries ago. But instead of tulips, the nation was gripped with euphoric hysteria over Barack Obama.
To blog you need something interesting to write about and the ability to write it. So what is Professor Jacobson’s secret. Blogs hosted by law professors seem to be a dime a dozen. Our politics is infested by lawyers Yet law professors who blog seem to be content to observe society, compile interesting links or write inside baseball What Professor Jacobson does is to write about the intersection of politics and law from a conservative prospective.
Yet you don’t need to be a law professor to blog. Just have something to say, about which people want to read, and the ability to write it. Publication like the Washington Post employ professional pundit to tell you what other professional pundits thinks. In contrast in the blogosphere, find out what history teachers [4], homemakers [5] and even rednecks [6] think.