Zorn’s Four Year Anniversary

Eric Zorn joins the Blogosphere with Breaking Views. A name he is already apologizing for. Two minor quibbles, he has no permalinks and one has to register to get to the blog. I am registered so no biggy, but it doesn’t fit the traditional blogosphere very well. Bill takes issues that he doesn’t have comments and points out he doesn’t understand why
Instapundit gets away without having them. Reynolds actually did have them, but got rid of them because managing trolls was simply too much. I imagine the same is true of a big media journalist at a large site. Another example of the problem is The Temple Report by former Missouri Democratic Executive Director Roy Temple. He faced some challenging trolls and while he seems to have it under control, not having comments will have to do for many new entrants. .

Otherwise, I think his Pundit Patrol will be a great niche to build off of–I’m already using it daily after two days. Zorn makes the most sense of any of the columnists at the Trib because he has a very conversational voice and has expanded that to his own web site. The blog was the next likely choice.

Wanting to take credit for it (like any good blogger regardless of how silly the claim) , I looked around my archives and find that I never did suggest him, though I did suggest the Red Eye incorporating Nathan Bierma as a blogger. Nathan does a fair amount of free lance work for the Trib.

Interestingly, Zorn had said it would be a great honor to get the Tempo slot vacated when the Trib fired Bob Greene. I think he may have found a far better gig in the long run. Especially with his conversational voice he should be a prime example of how a columnist can connect readers to the print and electronic editions of a paper and give readers a personal stake in the publication.

Up DATE: Butchered link and text fixed. Don’t blog on bleary eyes.