Instapundit

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Instapundit

Instapundit logo
Political affiliation Neolibertarian
Website http://www.instapundit.com/

Instapundit is a United States political blog produced by Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee. It is one of the most widely read political blogs.[1] The blog, started in August 2001, began as an experiment and a part of Reynolds' class on Internet law.

Because of his long-standing prominence in the political blogosphere and his efforts to encourage new bloggers, Reynolds is sometimes called the BlogFather.[2] A 2007 memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee described him as one of the five "best-read national conservative bloggers."[3]

Contents

[edit] The blog

Instapundit is sometimes considered a "warblog" because of its frequent supportive coverage of the "war on terrorism" and war in Iraq[citation needed]. Other common topics are technology (such as nanotechnology, space exploration, and digital photography), individual liberty, domestic policy, the media, and the blogosphere as a social phenomenon. Reynolds has recently lent his support to the Porkbusters campaign.

Much of InstaPundit's content consists of links to other sites, often with brief comments. (His frequent use of "heh," "indeed," and "read the whole thing" have been widely imitated and often parodied by other bloggers.) Reynolds encourages readers to explore the wider blogosphere and to fully read articles and posts to which he links. In 2005, Reynolds has at times added original video reports, shot documentary-style, to the site. He covered the 2005 BlogNashville convention using personally-shot video.

In January 2006, Reynolds began to host podcasts[4] from Instapundit, with his wife Helen Smith (who hosts discussion of the podcasts on her blog, "Dr. Helen"). Reynolds aggressively promotes the idea that bloggers, using now widely available tools such as digital audio and video, will eventually force more established news media to adapt a more agile approach to providing information[5].

Because of its popularity, an Instapundit link to another site can cause the traffic of that site to spike. Such an increase is often referred to as an instalanche[6], a portmanteau for "Instapundit avalanche". (See the Slashdot effect for a similar phenomenon.)

In 2007, Network theory researchers who studied blogs as a test case found that Instapundit was the #1 blog for "quickly know[ing] about important stories that propagate over the blogosphere".[7]

[edit] Political stances

Reynolds describes himself as a libertarian[8], specifically a libertarian transhumanist.[9] He tends to favor free markets, although he sees endemic corruption in certain public -sector markets such as "Mainstream Media". He also distrusts bureaucratic action in both economic and personal affairs of American citizens. He strongly supports the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq. He also strongly supports gun rights. The European Union, the United Nations, Islamic-world governments, American universities, and mainstream media are frequent targets of negative remarks or links. (On the other hand, he once described the New York Times as "the most important news source on or off the Net"[10])

Reynolds, who "worked for Al Gore's 1988 campaign",[11] now largely agrees with mainstream Republican positions on major issues such as the war in Iraq, tax cuts, health care, illegal immigration, and the environment. He often criticizes Republicans he says have fallen short on non-libertarian Republican goals such as on Iraq or immigration. His association with the conservative side of U.S. politics includes a book-signing at the 2006 Conservative Political Action Conference.[12] A favorite blog theme is that reasonable political discourse must be defended from liberal bias and from leftist tendencies such as so-called "Bush Derangement Syndrome". However, Reynolds holds liberal positions on some social issues that are consistent with libertarianism. For example, he supports embryonic stem cell research, abortion rights and same-sex civil unions. He has written: "Personally, I'd be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons."[13]

In October 2006, Reynolds was attacked by Rush Limbaugh[14] over several days for posting a "GOP Pre-mortem"[15] suggesting that the Republicans deserved to lose the 2006 Congressional elections.

Reynolds often blogs in support of Porkbusters, which he helped create. He has vigorously criticized politicians from both parties for pork barrel spending and earmarking.

[edit] Influence on other bloggers

In an article about the growth of blogs, writer and blogger Ed Driscoll states that:[16]

Reynolds’ quick rise to prominence helped to foster a hospitable environment for new bloggers. His background in DIY music may have been a factor: Punk and new-wave music, plus the home-recording boom of the early 1980s, encouraged an “Anybody can do this” attitude, a spirit that Reynolds carried into the emerging “Blogosphere.” In 2002, he published a list of well over two hundred blogs that claimed to be directly inspired by his own.

Instapundit's fame has led to the common adoption of the suffix "-pundit" in blog titles. Some of the more prominent ones are:

There are many other "-pundit" blogs of all political stripes. An extensive listing of blogs inspired to some degree by Instapundit may be found here.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Technorati Blog Finder: politics
  2. ^ Wired 12.02: START
  3. ^ GOP issues rules to avoid Macaca moments - Politico.com
  4. ^ Instapundit.com - Podcasts Archives
  5. ^ Instapundit.com
  6. ^ Individual archives - Glossary
  7. ^ CASCADES project: Cost-effective Outbreak Detection in Networks
  8. ^ Instapundit.com
  9. ^ Instapundit.com
  10. ^ Wired 12.02: START
  11. ^ Reynolds: Harriet Who? - Glenn Reynolds - MSNBC.com
  12. ^ Dr. Helen: Pictures from CPAC
  13. ^ Instapundit.com
  14. ^ Instapundit.com
  15. ^ Instapundit.com
  16. ^ Atlas Mugged: How a Gang of Scrappy, Individual Bloggers Broke the Stranglehold of the Mainstream Media

[edit] External links