Those of you who read Slate or Salon will note their blog roundups which focus on a particularly hot news topic of the day and present sample views of bloggers from different ideolgogical viewpoints. One of my criticisms of the Jewish media is that it’s completely missed the boat on the blogging phenomenon. So I’ve suggested to The Forward’s online editor that that publication create such a column in which they’d choose a different topic of Jewish interest each week and feature links to what Jewish bloggers are writing on the subject. He replied that he’d been wanting to do such a thing for some time but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I’d encourage him to pursue the idea. I also offered to help in any way I could.
Not only would it help drive traffic to Jewish blogs, it would also drive bloggers and their readers to The Forward’s site. The currency of Jewish blogs is largely unvalued within the Jewish media. Such a blog roundup would do much to integrate the two so they are less divorced and alien from each other.
The UK’s Jewish Chronicle is already doing this – a (very short) round up of what Jewish bloggers are writing about topical issues.
Good to hear from you, Esther.
I just checked out their site & couldn’t find it there. They wouldn’t even let me do a site search without subscribing for 5 pounds. No doubt the blog roundup is there, but appears buried pretty deep. Let me know if you can provide a link as I’d like to see what they’re doing.