Referring to Virginia Postrel’s site, Justin Slotman offers this candid observation of the blogosphere:

I notice she’s perpetuating the me-zine/blog split with her links section. She sets it up like this: me-zines are by professional writers, blogs are by everybody else. I think that’s the distinction. It’s not an arbitrary division that she’s making, but it might be an unnecessary one.

I think a more appropriate split would be blogs that make reference to other blogs versus blogs that make reference to professional writers’ blogs, non-web media pundits and figures and Instapundit only (Kaus, Sullivan, Josh Marshall). Virginia herself belongs to the former group. The latter group has the annoying characteristic (reminiscent of 80s-heyday WWF) of pretending that the competition does not exist (would Kaus ever reference Flit like Joanne Jacobs does? Has he, and I missed it?) but they do serve as a kind of nexus between old commentary and new commentary…

In the early days of the blogutopia, many of us rejoiced at what looked to be the weakening (if not outright collapse) of members-only credentialed “journalism.” But me fears that the same in-crowd attitude that at one point made print punditry seem disturbingly incestuous, is now worming its way through the ether…

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