Sullivan Ends Vacation Early To Respond To Ghostblogger Criticism
Comparing his blog to The Economist and the old Talk of the Town at the New Yorker, Andrew Sullivan ended his December vacation to respond to criticism that erupted over blog posts by Patrick Appel suggesting that other people wrote posts that ended up on Sullivan’s Daily Dish at The Atlantic‘s website.
Sullivan said that everything on the blog went through his frontal cortex and that there was no reason, at this point, to clutter the blog with the bylines of his staff, Appel and Chris Bodenner.
Sullivan wrote:
Any editorial views published as such on this blog are therefore mine and mine alone. But the content and counter-argument are generated by the collective mind of the readers, under-bloggers and the rest of the blogosphere. I think it’s cleaner and simpler not to clutter the blog up with bylines, and to retain its identity as one single narrative conversation. As long as you’re transparent about that, and we have been, I see no problem.
Sullivan said he was going to introduce new under-bloggers this year, but that the blog would continue to carry Sullivan’s name without bylines, no matter how many other people were writing post, adding “[b]ut my sense of the current intimations is that the Dish has organically evolved into an edited viewspaper, which has at its core my own take on the world, but which hopes to incorporate as many alternative views as possible in a coherent and entertaining conversation.”
The kerfuffle over “ghostbloggers” began when Appel wrote that things wouldn’t be much different while Sullivan was on vacation, saying “[g]uest-blogging is not all that different than my day-to-day activities on the Dish – 24 of the 50 posts currently on the front page were written by me.” While Sullivan has always been up front that he’s helped out by Appel and Bodenner–who have filled in on other Sullivan-breaks–the description of Appel’s work caught the attention of two Sullivan critics: conservative media watchdog Media Research Center’s Newsbusters and lawprof blogger Ann Althouse.
Newsbusters accused Sullivan of hypocrisy, given Sullivan’s criticism of Sarah Palin‘s ghostwriter Lynn Vincent while not disclosing ghostbloggers himself. Lachlan Markay sniped “Sullivan’s busy schedule prevented him from writing everything on his site, so, without informing his readers, he employed a few ghostbloggers to write in his name.” Althouse, who has a long-running feud with Sullivan, also went on the attack saying she couldn’t be bothered arguing with Sullivan’s minions.
I seriously believed I was interacting with Sullivan, a writer I have respected for maybe 20 years. I wouldn’t have bothered with Patrick (or Chris). I really don’t care what they think. If they insult me, they are to me like any number of bloggers who insult me and whose bait I don’t take. I would always take Sullivan’s bait, because Sullivan is important. Not to know whether it’s Sullivan or one of them makes a mush out of the whole blog. I’m not wading through all of this ghost-generated verbiage and guessing about what might be the real thing.
Appel opened the door to the kerfuffle by saying “I’ve marinated in Sullivan’s cerebral juices for a few years now and know intuitively what he (sic) interested in and what to bring to his attention.” As the controversy continued, Appel backtracked and defended Sullivan’s system saying Sullivan “is the irreplaceable ingredient in the Dish, and he does a tremendous amount of the work, more than either Chris or I. My and Chris’s work is highly circumscribed.”
Sullivan reiterated what Appel argued throughout the controversy: no one could honestly believe Sullivan was actually writing every post that showed up on the blog. Few people post as many blog posts a day as Sullivan and while it may seem like Sullivan has no unblogged thoughts–especially when it comes to Palin–the idea that he didn’t have significant help with writing posts seems naive at best.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
