In the earliest days of the internet, an Instapundit reader suggested the term “take the Boeing” to describe when bloggers join big media outlets.
Today, Volokh Conspiracy took the Washington Post’s Boeing:
We’re now trying what might be the most ambitious experiment yet: a joint venture with the Washington Post. The Post will host our blog, and pass along its content to Post readers (for instance, by occasionally linking to our stories from the online front page). We will continue to write the blog, and Volokh.com will still take you here.We will also retain full editorial control over what we write. And this full editorial control will be made easy by the facts that we have (1) day jobs, (2) continued ownership of our trademark and the volokh.com domain, and (3) plenty of happy experience blogging on our own, should the need arise to return to that.The main difference will be that the blog, like the other Washingtonpost.com material, will be placed behind the Post’s rather permeable paywall. We realize that this may cause some inconvenience for some existing readers — we are sorry about that, and we tried to negotiate around it, but that’s the Post’s current approach.
I wish them well. They are the premier group of law professor and lawyer bloggers who actually blog about the law. Not to leave others out, but the work Eugene Kontorovich has done on The Legal Case for Israel is decisive.
As for me, I don’t know if I am hirable by major newspapers. Certainly not The New York Times, for at least 10 reasons.
When big media gobbles up what’s left of the smaller blogosphere, I tend to throw a pity party and look for a song that fits my mood.
When it was reported that Salem Communications was going to buy Eagle Publishing, and its Redstate and Reason websites, I asked if there was a place for us, somewhere a place for us.
Right now, I’m cueing up The Impossible Dream.
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