Joining Up With Josh Marshall's TPMCafe

I've always worried that I'm not quite a "natural" blogger. I was never the kind of person who e-mailed all sorts of interesting things to various overlapping mailing lists, and I've always written too long and too infrequently. I'm sort of amazed that this blog has the audience it does, given my lapses and my sometimes wonky interests. But I've always thought it would be great to be part of a group blog, one which would provide its own provocations, and in which I wouldn't be the only person responsible for content. (Acknowledging that commentors provide a lot of the content and value here as they do elswehere, especially recently.)

That's why I'm so thrilled to be joining the group that will be contributing at the start of Josh Marshall's TPMCafe, which goes live today (May 31). The group of people who will be participating in the "coffeehouse" portion of the new site is extraordinary: Three are my colleagues and former colleagues at the New America Foundation: Steve Clemons, Mike Lind, and Karen Kornbluh. Really, if there was a single reason I joined New America this year, it was for the opportunity to have a steady, water-cooler dialogue with these three and others, and it has lived up to that expectation. Other participants I've had some long and provocative exchanges with, although I don't know them as well as I'd like to: Ed Kilgore, Greg Anrig, Reed Hundt. (I always use Hundt as an example of the reach that a blog can have. Last fall I wrote something not quite accurate about how the Federal Communications Commission works, and within an hour, I had a comment and email from Hundt, a former FCC chair, gently correcting me, which I've always thought exemplified the brilliance of online collaboration through blogs: its easy to make errors, but even easier to correct them.)

And others -- Annie Lamott, Marshall Wittmann, Judith Shulevitz, I know only through their writing. (I do know that I went to college approximately with Judith Shulevitz, so I'm sure that over the course of this we will find some common bonds!)

In addition to this group, Josh has brought Matt Yglesias's entire blog under the wing of TPMCafe (further proof that anti-trust enforcement is dead), added a blog by the very smart Ken Baer, and will maintain the blog that Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren started at the time of the bankruptcy bill. If you look around, there seem to be some indicators of other features as well. So I've got one cubicle in a corporate empire.

It's also extremely flattering to be asked to participate in this by Josh, who I don't know well. I had always admired his journalism at The American Prospect and elsewhere, and his was certainly the first "blog" I read regularly. I doubt I would have seen just how to use this form well without his example. With the exception that I was never as interested in the Chandra Levy/Gary Condit melodrama as he was, I've often felt slavishly imitative of what he was doing, to the extent that I sometimes had to pull back and change topics so as not to track him too closely. I think TPMCafe, in addition to bringing together a lot of brainy liberals, will help Josh do what he does best, and what blogs can do best, which is sometimes to grab an issue and, as Howell Raines used to say, "flood the zone," and other times pull back and be more eclectic and imaginative.

As for The Decembrist, I expect to keep it going. I may sometimes cross-post, or use this for longer points that don't seem to fit in with the conversation of the moment at TPMcafe. I know that Josh intends to to cycle new voices into the TPMCafe discussion, so I don't regard that as permanent. On the other hand, I don't know that I can keep a steady stream of posts here and there, and do any other writing or actual work. So there will be some tension, and we'll have to see how it plays out. I am confident that everyone who enjoys The Decembrist will want to read TPMCafe, though, so be sure to bookmark it. The conversation's started already, my name has been invoked, and I'm late!

Comments

[MLinNVA]

Mark: the link doesn't work but I found TMPCafe anyway. Looks interesting but/and very time consuming. I hope you'll have a section so that if a Decmbrist groupie just wants to read what you are thinking about, she can find it easily. M.

[Krimpet]

I've been quietly enjoying your excellent blog for a long time and just thought I'd take the opportunity to tell you how much I've enjoyed it. I hope you keep it up. I'll be looking for you over at tpm cafe though.

Thanks for all the hard work.

[Joe Smith]

I love this blog and I am glad Mark will be joining the wonderful people (too many to mention) at TPMcafe. However, I hope The Decembrist blog stays up even if it is posted to infrequently. I like the fact that this blog sometimes goes into depth on issues that don't fit neatly into "Social Security" "The Filibuster" or "How Do Democrats Retake Power?" etc. that all liberals blogs seem to have compartmentalized posts into. DOn't worry if this blog lacks for content, just remember that it is here if need be.

[murky]

"I'm sort of amazed that this blog has the audience it does, given my lapses and my sometimes wonky interests."

It's the banner. At least it is for me. No way I'm going to read this stuff over at that TPMCafe site. I'll settle for the cross posts.

[jonnybutter]

I'm sort of amazed that this blog has the audience it does, given my lapses and my sometimes wonky interests

This has been one of the more interesting blogs out there, IMO, and you will now be yet another reason to hang out at TPMCafe.

I had a blog for about a year - before, during, and just after the election - and always felt a lot of pressure to post-or-die (lose my audience, such as it was): that was the CW about blogs at the time. But I think it's clear now that there's room for more than one kind of blog; people will choose to seek out/wait for quality (as opposed to quantity) from blogs they like (that's what RSS is for!). I imagine the TCM consolidation will works out great, but even if it doesn't, that will probably be OK too.

Actually, my only problem with the blogosphere is finding time to read everything I want (in addition to actual books)!

thanks for doing the Decembrist, and cheers!

[yoyo]

understandable because its the first day, but the TPMC site is quite byzantine; i haven't been able to figure out a live feed for your postings there yet, or lists of the other bloggers.

[AE]

I hope you will continue this blog, Mark, or write in a similar vein at TPMCafe, which looks like a zoo and a bit of a challenge to navigate. I'm still new to blogs, but you seem much different from some, more measured, less reactive and petty, the subjects carefully chosen, with the advantage of inside the government experience. Charlie Peters often used to write about the benefits from working in government for a few years as he did in the 60's.

[David Weman]

Mark, I doubt any of your readers prefer short Mark Schmitt posts to long in-depth ones. The water cooler aspect is cool, but selfishly, I think I'd prefer if you prioritized The Decembrist. (I say selfishly because the coffee house presumably has a much wider reach.)