behind the news

The Mating Dance of the Blogerati

Bloggers and mainstream media folks attend a party. Insert punchline here.

March 10, 2006

“Boldface,” Campbell Robertson’s gossip column in the New York Times, brings us news this morning of a party at the home of Jim Kelly, managing editor of Time, celebrating the launch of Andrew Sullivan’s blog, “The Daily Dish,” on Time.com.

The ever-jovial Kelly’s guest list, we learn, seamlessly embraced new media and old, including, as it did, Graydon Carter, Nick Denton, Harry Evans, Ana Marie Cox, Peter Kaplan, Ann Moore, Jessica Coen, Charlie Rose, Anderson Cooper and Jesse Oxfeld.

As Robertson so deftly puts it:

“Attending were bloggers, who will write snarkily about the other attendees, the mainstream media people, who will in turn report earnestly on the bloggers, who in turn will deride the media people who in turn will write breathless features on the bloggers, who in turn will quietly get jobs in the media, thus starting the cycle anew, as America, all the while, continues to watch ‘Dancing With the Stars.’ “

We couldn’t have said it better. So we won’t.

Steve Lovelady was editor of CJR Daily.