That's easy. Stay true to their core competence as aggregators/editors and link (perhaps a sidebar) to the best/most linked commentaries on their stories and Op-Eds. They'll get linked to more because bloggers will want a shot at MSM credit; the increase in links will drive up their blogoverse credibility, and they'll get more page views which means more ad revenue.
Salon is doing that now; showing technorati links to its stories. Interesting.
I didn't know that. The problem, of course, is that Salon blows, and has been in a long-term death spiral for a couple of years.
I'm still amazed that the LAT was so freaking naive - does no one there have a glancing familiarity with what goes on in unmoderated universes online?
Had they invested in a moderator, with delayed posting and some screening, they probably wouldn't have embarassed themselves to this extent.
Totally off the subject: I'm seeking the Chopper Effect: Everybody please cross your fingers, sacrifice a goat, pour a libation [including down your own throats; Bacchus rules, too], take that colander off your head and beam positive thoughts to the alien overlords, and/or pray to the Cosmic Muffin or whatever you believe in that the lovely lovely job with the $paycheck$ I interviewed for this morning is offered to me. Pleasepleaseplease...
Remember when Salon (and Slate) didn't blow? I miss reading good Slate, actually.
Aside from the moderation problem, I fail to see the raison d'tre of a mass collaborative essay. It's like the expository equivalent of a Psycho-billy Cadillac:
Now, up to now my plan went all right
'Til we tried to put it all together one night
And that's when we noticed that something was definitely wrong.
The transmission was a '53
And the motor turned out to be a '73
And when we tried to put in the bolts all the holes were gone.
That said, I do have high hopes for my new invention, the Fisk-o-Matic.
Remember when Salon (and Slate) didn't blow? I miss reading good Slate, actually.
I think Slate's still intermittently okay. Very few of their regular authors are any good, but they seem to bring in a lot of talented freelancers. Salon, on the other hand, has (or had) some good regular contributors, but no money to buy anything else. And the regulars have gotten bored, fired, or just stunk all along.
Yes! Then they can hire me to go over your articles.
I'm not sure that's a zing or encouragement. As is my want, I take it as the latter. Yes! w-lfs-n will be the Robin to my Batman! How can they refuse?
I like Salon's Gary Kamiya a lot, but he almost never writes now. Ditto Tom about Slate; I still read it pretty regularly without disgust.
I was thinking more along the lines of "competent Batman to your incompetent Batman", but whatever.
Hey, good luck, DE. I thought you just coasted through llfe sucking on the blood of your suitors, but if you need a paycheck, here's hoping you get one.
w-lfs-n definitely is trying to start a fight with everyone. Ditto Ogged on the good luck to DE.
Josh Levin has written stuff for Slate that makes me laugh, but I don't know whether he still does. Contributing to my dislike: They employ the worst art critic in the nation (well, media).
Weiner, there's absolutely no justification for that claim, you putrid ass.
Hey, why do Jews always answer a question with a question?
Come to think of it, Wolfs, perhaps your Alfred.
Kriston, didn't their art critic harsh out on John Currin? That made me happy.
Hey, why do Jews always answer a question with a question?
"How should they answer?" being the proper response.
I was about to correct 23, but then I realized it's like tossing out Scooby Snacks to the gang here. Anyway, good luck DE.
I thought you just coasted through llfe sucking on the blood of your suitors
Platelets just don't buy what they used to. Besides, the Biophysicist owns a Glock, which tends to discourage new blood. [Never arm scientists; they always want to see what happens when a human brain is spattered by a 9mm ball cartridge...]
I would have thought a Glock would make the release of new blood easier.
Lee Siegel is Slate's art critic. He's also TNR's television critic and The Nation's book critic. I don't remember whether he slammed Currin or not (Jed Perl did in TNR, I know that much). He recently said, "To understand Cy Twombly's art, you have to know he was gay," which I thought was beyond the pale.
I was thinking of this, by Mia Fineman. I haven't gone back to look at the whole slide show--it's not really a slam, except in contrast with Peter Schlejdahl's John-the-Baptist impression.
Huh, I'm no expert, but I kinda like Siegel. This, on acting, was good, for example.
I thought you just coasted through llfe sucking on the blood of your suitors
I thought her job was implicit in her name. Had visions of people paying for the privilege of being smacked around/humiliated/made to look through books of modern usage.
Lee Siegel's career absolutely fascinates me. Here is a guy who basically has the job all of us set out to get when we graduated from college -- free-floating critic of all things artistic and cultural -- and he's absolutely terrible! His writing borders on incoherent. It's essentially a bad immitation of Leon Wieseltier: predictably contrarian with sentences that don't work together. I rarely get the sense that he even understands what the pieces he criticizes are trying to do. Really, the fact that he has three jobs in an economy in which some people don't even have two is just astounding.
Had visions of people paying for the privilege of being smacked around/humiliated/made to look through books of modern usage.
You got it, ac! Except I also make them correct their improper usage, force them to rethink plot points, highlight their inconsistencies...
But with a kid going for a BA at a very expen$ive college, a larger paycheck and some benefits would be really much nicer than free-lancing. Especially after experience with the romance novelist who couldn't write "make love" without interposing an adjective. I will never forgive the agent who handed me that one...
Late to the game here, but vibes are being sent your way, DE!