Dave Weigel: Failure

Tim Cavanaugh | August 31, 2006

It's truly silly season for free online media, as the WSJ coughs up a web piece on an issue that's burning up America: How much does traffic drop when bloggers take August vacations and turn their sites over to guest bloggers?

Reason's own "Delaware" Dave Weigel, fresh from ghosting Andrew Sullivan's web log, features prominently in the story, and in the process learns an important lesson: If you're in a trend piece and you're the only source who doesn't blow smoke up the reporter's ass, you'll end up being the scapegoat. As the Journal puts it:

"The frequency of emails of 'Bring back Andrew' and 'This is stupid. Bring back Andrew' is definitely higher than anything I've ever written," says David Weigel, a 24-year-old assistant editor at Reason magazine, who is one of Mr. Sullivan's guest bloggers and has filled in at other sites in the past.

Weigel nemesis Michelle Malkin, on the other hand, downplays her own traffic drop and blames it on "fickle" readers. (Isn't their loyalty to Malkin alone actually the opposite of fickleness? Is that the kind of crap they taught those pansies at Holy Spirit?) As Weigel puts it: "Notice that my traffic relative to Sullivan is higher than Malkin's guest bloggers, but I am the symbol of guest blog failure."

Watch Dave burn up the blog every day, right here at Reason.

Comments

|8.31.06 @ 6:13PM|#

FYI, it's not just a Web piece: it's on B1 of the print edition.

But Dave's quote is hard to parse. Does "than anything I've ever written", does he mean compared to other guest-blogging assignments he's had? If so, that speaks to something about Sullivan, not something about summer.

|8.31.06 @ 6:20PM|#

I'm not surprised, I'm reading (sometimes, mostly not) David Wiegel's posts here on Reason.
You should check you traffic stats, David Wiegel is a danger to any site.

|8.31.06 @ 6:30PM|#

Perhaps the traffic drop happens because the readers are also on vacation?

|8.31.06 @ 6:31PM|#

Sullivan's readers include millions of Canadians. When they heard that David was guest blogging the site... well, let's just say that those Canucks hold a grudge.

Baylen Linnekin|8.31.06 @ 6:32PM|#

It's Dave Weigel's fault the Reason server is so slow. And it's Dave Weigel's fault I'm going bald, too.

|8.31.06 @ 6:41PM|#

No wonder Dave Weigel's posts suck. 24? He just a spring chicken!

|8.31.06 @ 6:53PM|#

I'm not surprised, I'm reading (sometimes, mostly not) David Wiegel's posts here on Reason.
I've gotten that way about all the Reason employees. It's rare that finishing any given article is worth the time; they seem more appropriate for Kos or some other propaganda-lite outfit, and if not for some of the HnR riff-raff I wouldn't bother with reason.com any more.

gnxp.com is far more interesting, enlightened, open-minded and educational, though somewhat specialized - and rather intellectually intimidating, too, I must admit. That's never a problem here, though.

|8.31.06 @ 6:57PM|#

"That's never a problem here, though."

Ha, ha, ha ! Indeed.

|8.31.06 @ 7:00PM|#

He's 24!?.....that explains why he thinks the USN has a missile interceptor system.....heh, heh. Um, hey, Dave!
Want to own a real piece of America?? It just so happens I inherited the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge......

|8.31.06 @ 7:07PM|#

Why doesn't flemur leave and not come back? If he doesn't like to read any of it, what's the point? Who are these "riff-raff" whose company he likes?

Mr. F. Le Mur,

Would you care to name names?

|8.31.06 @ 7:21PM|#

I have a serious question. Why do bloggers take vacations? Isn't blogging in itself a vacation.

|8.31.06 @ 7:29PM|#

The scapegoat? At least he was honest and good-natured about it. To my mind he comes out ahead of the other people quoted.

And yes, to counteract the I-hate-this-place-but-still-keep-coming-here crowd, I think Dave Weigel and the rest of y'all are doing great.

Jim Henley|8.31.06 @ 8:23PM|#

Hit & Run has been all downhill since Ithiel de Sola Pool stopped blogging.

|8.31.06 @ 8:25PM|#

"Perhaps the traffic drop happens because the readers are also on vacation?"

Now that's just crazy talk!

|8.31.06 @ 9:06PM|#

Of course, I would say it's all been downhill since Tibor left, but that might be biased.

|8.31.06 @ 10:54PM|#

I think I liked Hit and Run better when everyone was dumping on Katherine.

|8.31.06 @ 11:46PM|#

Note to all those who like to think David or Katherine are the living signs of the downfall of Reason or Hit and Run:

Just because you have gotten used to the quirks and predispositions of other, more long-standing contributors, does not mean that you or other readers and commentors cannot become accustomed to new writers' quirks and predispositions.

|9.1.06 @ 12:29AM|#

And a note to flemur and the other haters:

I understand that you have moved beyond the rest of us. Women fawn on you and spread their legs when you walk past. Men cower and lick your boots. I understand. I know what that's like, but for some reason that doesn't happen here. Maybe it's time to move on to greener pastures.

|9.1.06 @ 2:57AM|#

I've never understood guest blogging.

It's like a guy who runs a hot dog cart in a park is going on vacation, so he asks the guy who sells gyros from the cart next to his to sell a few gyros from his cart while he's gone...

What's the point?

|9.1.06 @ 3:45AM|#

Aside from Cavanaugh, who, like, reads books and knows shit, the new kids here are all laughable morons.

But Weigel (D-Reason) is only the second most perfect "symbol of [Hit and Run's] failure," so lay off the kid.

|9.1.06 @ 5:02AM|#

Well I like reading old Lemur so I hope he sticks around. Like watching Archie Bunker rail away at the 'homos' and 'coloreds' that kind of talk just makes me feel smart. Thanks Lemur, you boost my self-esteem ever' time you post.

|9.1.06 @ 7:51AM|#

wombat...lmao!

|9.1.06 @ 9:20AM|#

Dave, is Malkin really your nemesis? I think you can take her out, just don't accept any offers to go into her Trampolinedome ("Two Bounce in, One Bounces out").

I'm my own nemesis, which saves me a lot of postage.

Peter K.|9.1.06 @ 10:45AM|#

1. Michele Malkin is hot.

2. Having been attacked by the Wall Street Journal Online should be a badge of honor. Well-done Mr. Weigel. And so early in your career.

3. Hit and Run has gone downhill every since Carpet-Humping Man started buying advertising space.

Peter K.|9.1.06 @ 10:46AM|#

1. Michele Malkin is hot.

2. Having been attacked by the Wall Street Journal should be a badge of honor. Well-done Mr. Weigel. And so early in your career.

3. Hit and Run has gone downhill every since Carpet-Humping Man started buying advertising space.

|9.2.06 @ 3:48AM|#

Some decidely ungentlemenly, classless types on the beginning of this thread. What were you doing at 24? Were you so omnisciently wise, knowledgable and mature then? (obviously not to the last question as a few of you seem about as mature as my nine year old..."Mr." Le Mur in particular). Give the kid a break.