Blog This

For my first assignment I chose to read an established, main stream blog, Chris Cillizza’s The Fix (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/). I made this decision with malice aforethought for two reasons: I am familiar with the author’s style from reading his newspaper, The Washington Post, and his articles for Roll Call before he moved to the Post and two, my general unfamiliarity with the blogosphere. I must not be alone in this unfamiliarity since the spell checker for Word does not recognize “blog” or “blogosphere.”

The comfort of The Fix lies in its predictability. The prose is the kind of pleasantly crisp declarative English one expects of an experienced journalist on the staff of the Post. It may rarely excite, but it never offends. His coverage of the lead-in to last week’s primaries was insightful and sympathetic, if a bit conservative in the literal sense. He spent considerable time in detailing the landscape of the growing friction between the Obama and Clinton campaigns with some insight, but no excursions onto any opinionated limbs. The audience is obviously intended to be informed middle-of-the-road to mildly liberal – the sort of people who read the print version of The Post.

The mechanics of Cillizza’s blog are as good as the Post can make them, and that is very good indeed. Links to video feeds are flawless and relevant – for example, the sound bites from Obama and Clinton appearances that support the author’s narrative. Photographs from the campaign trail are present without being intrusive. Cillizza posts daily most of the time, and more often as necessary in the case of recent Presidential Candidate Debates.

Unfortunately, some of the outstanding characteristics of The Fix will alienate many in the blogosphere. Cillizza’s very predictability that is certainly in keeping with The Post’s editorial policy will alienate a significant number of people for the same reason it comforts others: no fire. I began this review by confessing my lack of experience with blogs, but one thing I do understand is that, at best, blogging represents a new avant garde of thought, a place where innovation counts for more than safety.

While it is not surprising that so august an institution as The Washington Post remains true to its institutional conservatism it is unfortunate that its on-line arm cannot rise to the opportunities that the blogosphere provides. It is not due to lack of talent, for Chris Cillizza really is an informed and able journalist. I am afraid that something else is at work: the curse of the larger brand.

Blogs, I am finding out, are often messy and sometimes chaotic – not the stuff of newspaper legend or Pulitzer prizes. There is a kind of freshness about them that attracts pointed commentary and out-of the-box thinking that is refreshing, if less rigorous than some readers would prefer. This is not to say there are no standards, but there is a certain lack of consistency that comes from the lack of an Editor. I have reached a conclusion: I’ll read my newspapers off-line and my blogs on-line.