A daily newspaper can exist for decades. So can big television and radio stations. Not so the small independent political blogs one finds in Montana. Most blogs here are either one-man operations, or at best, the casual collaboration of a small group of like-minded people, and they seem to last approximately a decade before fading away or changing so much they become something new.
In just the last year, Gregg Smith’s Electric City Weblog, for years probably Montana’s leading conservative blog, stopped posting new material. It’s still online, but in archival mode. Left in the West, a major liberal blog that once posted several times a day, still posts new material, but so infrequently that it’s now a de facto archival site. And 4and20blackbirds, long Montana’s premier liberal blog, is down to one or two regular writers and has changed focus and tone noticeably.
Pete Talbot, long a 4and20 mainstay, recently observed (in a comment threat at Intelligent Discontent):
Just some background here: in the heady, early days of blogging in Montana, Left in The West and 4&20 Blackbirds were the go to sites for Democratic/progressive insights. Rob Kailey’s A Chicken is not Pillage was also a major contributor to the discussion. At least, that’s how I remember it. Matt Singer was the main contributor at LiTW and Jay Stevens, my mentor, authored 4&20. Jay went over to LiTW for awhile, until he moved away. Occasionally, Matt would write for 4&20. Intelligent Discontent, MT Cowgirl and Flathead Memo came into play a bit later — correct me if I’m wrong and feel free to mention other sites — these are the ones I follow.
Jhwygirl took over for Jay at 4&20 and I joined a bit later, followed by JC, problembear, duganz, carfreestupidity and lizard, All these folks are/were good writers, although we certainly didn’t agree much of the time (which kept things interesting, IMHO). I appreciate lizard’s commitment to the site. He’s kept it going. His politics remind me of myself, at a younger age. His sometime attacks on Obama, Tester, Schweitzer, et al. can be troubling because in this political climate, the guys he’s attacking are about as left as this country/state can go. But he’s entitled to his opinion. Same with JC.
Most of 4&20”s writers have dropped by the wayside. I’m guessing it’s because of real life obligations and some burnout; not because of any great internecine squabbles. My life got hectic; my daughter gave birth to twin boys and I’ve been helping her out, for example. They go to bed at 8 and I’m in the sack by 9, exhausted.
That’s an astute observation. Blogging is time consuming, especially for thoughtful writers who also do honest-to-god reporting from time-to-time. Some bloggers stop posting because they’ve run out of ideas, lost interest, or become disheartened, but others retire from the online commentariat because they no longer have the energy or time to keep going. None of us makes money blogging. We invest our own money and time, mostly time, but our only income is the satisfaction of contributing to public discourse in ways that we hope make our communities better places.
I’ve been online since 1997, and online with Flathead Memo since the late summer of 2006. I’m now semi-retired, which gives me more time to blog, but also slightly less energetic, so I’m posting at approximately the same frequency as before. Sometimes, I find myself wondering whether I should look for a way to turn Flathead Memo over to younger or fresher bloggers before I wear out (or worse). But for now, Pete and everyone else can count on my sticking around, sticking it to the deserving.