New York magazine has pulled together a timeline of Andrew Sullivan’s “The Dish.” It includes major topics the blogger took on, from marriage equality to his endorsement of Barack Obama, as well as highlights and some numbers.
For instance:
Reader emails received since 2008: 622,162
Largest donation from a reader:$25,000
“Beard of the Week” posts: 50
Published posts since January 2001: 115,436
Recurring beagle characters (Dusty, Eddy, and Bowie): 3
Earlier this month, Sullivan wrote his final post, including something he first wrote 13 years ago.
[T]he speed with which an idea in your head reaches thousands of other people’s eyes has another deflating effect, this time in reverse: It ensures that you will occasionally blurt out things that are offensive, dumb, brilliant, or in tune with the way people actually think and speak in private. That means bloggers put themselves out there in far more ballsy fashion than many officially sanctioned pundits do, and they make fools of themselves more often, too. The only way to correct your mistakes or foolishness is in public, on the blog, in front of your readers. You are far more naked than when clothed in the protective garments of a media entity.
But, somehow, you’re liberated as well as nude: blogging as a media form of streaking. I notice this when I write my blog, as opposed to when I write for the old media. I take less time, worry less about polish, and care less about the consequences on my blog. That makes for more honest writing. It may not be “serious” in the way, say, a 12-page review of 14th-century Bulgarian poetry in the New Republic is serious. But it’s serious inasmuch as it conveys real ideas and feelings in as unvarnished and honest a form as possible. I think journalism could do with more of that kind of seriousness. It’s democratic in the best sense of the word. It helps expose the wizard behind the media curtain.
