February 07, 2006
BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: The Wonderful Thing About TigerHawk Is TigerHawk's A Wonderful Thing ...
Today the Blogometer talks to the pseudonymous TigerHawk, who writes the eponymous TigerHawk.
What is your full name?
TigerHawk.
What is your age?
Roughly 44, look like a young 50.
Where did you grow up?
I spent my formative years in Iowa City, Iowa. My father was professor of history at the University of Iowa, and I am a lifelong Hawkeye fan, even though I am not an alumnus. I went to boarding school in New Jersey in the '70s, then Princeton, then the University of Michigan Law School. From there I moved to Chicago for about 8 years, and then back East about ten years ago. It is not clear that I have yet "grown up."
Where do you live now?
Princeton, NJ.
What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?
I am a corporate tool, in that I am a senior executive for a public company of some size, which is why I blog anonymously. I have not worked for the "mainstream media" since I wrote articles for the Res Gestae, the student newspaper of the University of Michigan Law School. And there are those who argue that the RG really isn't the MSM.
When did you start blogging and why?
I blogged in a sense before I really knew what blogs were -- when I travelled, I would sometimes write long emails on various subjects that interested me and circulate them to friends. Just about two years ago -- December 2003 -- one of my good friends who was quite tired of these emails suggested that I start a blog. She sent me the link to Blogger and the rest is history.
What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?
I write about a great many things, and it would be hard to identify a favorite post among the almost 3000 to date. If I had to pick one right now, I nominate my post on "victory conditions in the wider war." I write a lot about the story of our age: the war on Islamic fascism, including the battle in that war now being fought in Iraq (the phrasing of my response surely indicates my general position on that topic).
Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?
I blog early in the morning and in the evening, by and large. By "blogging," though, I include my on line reading, which I was doing long before I started my blog. I do try to post every day, though, and on weekends my output usually increases. Since inception, I have averaged about four posts per day.
Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?
My favorite political blogger is Richard Fernandez of The Belmont Club. I also like Glenn Reynolds, Roger L. Simon, the Power Line trio, Charles Johnson, Cassandra of Villainous Company (who has been known to post on TigerHawk) and any number of others. I'm not sure I have a favorite non-political blogger, although I do read them. That's a toughie.
Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?
Does Christopher Hitchens count? If not, Mark Steyn.
What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?
Does "The Beltway Boys" count? I don't watch much television news, per se.
What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?
New York Times, Washington Post, Yahoo! News. Often The Note at abcnews.com and the "Best of the Web" at opinionjournal.com. Others less regularly. I read a lot of stories on foreign newspaper websites -- I probably rotate among 20 or so foreign papers, looking at three or four per day.
What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?
Instapundit and The Belmont Club are the most reliable daily visits. I probably read 40-50 other blogs or blog aggregators roughly twice a week.
How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?
Daily, or almost daily.
How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?
I am not a blog triumphalist, and even though I'm a big supporter of efforts to legitimize the professional blogs, for me it is just a hobby and always will be. But I'll still give it a shot.
Let's define our terms. I am not writing about the 27 million blogs tracked by Technorati, or the possibly larger number that are not. I'm also not talking about "elite" bloggers, who are really just professional journalists or writers who have deployed the new technology. I am talking about some small number -- probably less than 10,000 -- of English-language bloggers who write for a general audience and try hard to be successful. Many write on political matters, but some write for a general audience within some specialty (law librarians, or fans of the Chicago Cubs, or securities lawyers). The key point is that they are not really writing for their friends and family so much as for some unaffiliated audience.
The most important impact of blogging, I think, is that it is the most convenient mechanism by which readers can select what they want to read about and from what perspective. Of old, the producers of the three networks and the editors of the wire services or big city papers performed that task. It was an incredibly small group of people, if you think about it. Then, the Internet made it possible for people to read material straight from the wires or any newspaper, not just the paper that landed on the driveway. Now, we can choose our editors. That's really what bloggers are, after all -- editors. Oh, some of us do some analysis, some of us do some punditry, and some of us do some actual reporting (I like to think I've done all three at one time or another). But our real function is to tell our readers what we think they should focus on. We get and retain readers by writing about or linking to things that they think are important. In so doing, we have tremendously threatened the narrow elite that used to perform this task for the public. The smart MSM editors and producers will recognize that there has been a sea-change, and they will try to harness the "long tail" editors of the blogosphere to improve their own MSM product. The dumb ones -- or perhaps simply the blind ones -- won't know what's hitting them when their competitors open up their editorial process to open source contributions from bloggers.
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