March 23, 2006
BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: Mattewan
Today the Blogometer talks to libertarian Matt Welch, who writes an eponymous blog, and was a recent contributor to Reason's Hit and Run.
What is your full name?
None of your business! But my pen name is Matt Welch.
What is your age?
37
Where did you grow up?
Long Beach, California.
Where do you live now?
Los Angeles, California, in the neighborhood of Silver Lake.
What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?
I'm the assistant editorial pages editor for the Los Angeles Times.
Yes to the latter. I have also covered campaigns, including Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential run (for WorkingForChange.com), and the 2004 major-party political conventions for Reason magazine.
When did you start blogging and why?
For my personal site, on Sept. 16, 2001, because I was pissed off about the massacre five days prior, and felt that I had things I wanted to both say and collect that my jobs at the time didn't really allow me to do. I had actually co-founded a group blog six months previous called LAexaminer.com, because I wanted there to be a site that paid attention to what Los Angeles media was saying and doing. (That mantle has been taken -- thank God -- by Kevin Roderick's LAobserved.com).
What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?
I think my blogging for Reason.com from the Democratic Convention in 2004 was particularly good (for me), but it was hellaciously unpleasant to do.
I enjoy (even/especially though my readers don't) blogging in absurd depth about Angels baseball history; and I'll always treasure the emotional connections I made with readers and fellow bloggers in the first three or six months after Sept. 11.
Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?
Don't have much of one, now that I'm working at the L.A. Times (Reason had a full-time blog to feed daily, though don't be surprised to see some stuff emanating from Spring Street sometime soon). For my personal site, I peck a few grafs away when I have the time and energy, which is to say, not so often. Maybe an hour or two on weekends, and 10 minutes here and there on weeknights.
Anymore, it's 3-6 posts a week, if that. When I was at Reason it was 3 posts a day.
Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?
That's an oxymoronic phrase. I guess these days it's whoever can write passionately about politics while still making me laugh, and one of the last people left who can do that with any regularity is "The Editors" of ThePoorman.net. Non-political: Dr. Frank.
Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?
I'll recuse myself from those who write for the L.A. Times ... So, I like that Mike Zwerin weirdo for the International Herald Tribune
What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?
"The Colbert Report."
What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?
Again excepting my employer, probably the only one I visit every day is the blog of my *former* employer, Hit and Run.
What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?
Sploid, Tony Pierce + Busblog, Emanuelle Richard, Halo's Heaven, 6-4-2, L.A. Observed, Baseball Think Factory, Colby Cosh, Cathy Seipp, Atrios, Instapundit, Secrecy News, Chronicles of the Lads.
How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?
At least once a day.
How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?
To the extent that we won't really be distinguishing much between the two phrases anymore; maybe we'll use "legacy media" to talk about the big newspapers/broadcast networks. The whole End of Mass Media period will continue to produce fascinating paradoxes (such as: even while bleeding audience, Legacy Media companies will continue printing money) and conflicts with the upstarts. It will continue to be the best time for journalism and media in our history.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Reclamation Project
At Huffington Post, Liberal Oasis' Bill Scher explains "Why I Am Not A Progressive": "For better or for worse, 'liberal' and 'conservative' are part of the American political lexicon, and the mainstream media reflexively uses those terms to define our ideological spectrum," and "despite the pounding 'liberal' has taken from Republicans, the solution is not to run further away from the word. That only makes the problem worse. As much as we may dislike labels, we can't dismiss them." More: "By taking to the airwaves, the letters page and the blogs, we can take the lead in re-associating "liberal" with the values and beliefs that speak to Americans' struggles and desires in an insecure economy and a destabilized world: responsive government, sound management, shared responsibility, personal freedom and the spread of liberty and prosperity, not destruction and hypocrisy, across the globe."
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