There’s some good news for those who value solid, thoughtful political writing: former magazine editor and blogging pioneer Andrew Sullivan, who ran the late, great blog The Dish, will be back in writing action again — hired by New York Magazine as Contributing Editor.
Sullivan has long been a favorite of virtually anyone who has written on The Moderate Voice. He was one of the few political writers to authentically re-assess some positions, and change them, and be battered by a segment of his one-time readership fan base and come out of it stronger than before. His writing was noted for its exceptional quality and insight. In short, he was always a role model to many here on TMV, and quoted and linked to often. He also graced this site with a link on his blogroll.
We’ve missed him in the year since he announced that The Dish would end, correctly pointing out that serious blogging takes an awful lot of energy out of someone, can can turn a writer into a kind of slave who no longer has the time to write long form, has to cut back on reading, and is always responding ASAP to a big, breaking story (tell me about it). But he is now back. Here’s part of his Facebook post:
Dear Dishheads
It’s now been over a year since we ended the Dish, and I’d be lying if I told you there hadn’t been a few moments this year when I have had one hell of a blogging itch. So many story arcs that the Dish covered have subsequently progressed and evolved – Obama’s long game as the liberal Reagan, the degeneracy of American conservatism, the Palin farce which paved the way for the Trump excrescence, the breakthrough with Iran, and the return of torture and grim advance of sponsored content.
So am I going back to blogging? Nuh-huh. The year off was revelatory. It’s only when you stop being pathologically attached to each ripple in the web-stream that you see most clearly how ephemeral so much of it is, how emotionally and nervously draining it can be, and how our discourse can be fatally distorted as well as deeply informed by the onslaught of the social web. I hope to write about what I learned in detox – it culminated in ten days of silent meditation last fall – soon.
This email is to let you know that I’m going back to long-form journalism, as I hoped to, at New York Magazine, edited by the incomparable Adam Moss (with whom I’ve worked, on and off, since the late 1980s). I start today and am already working on an essay on Trump. I’ll also be blogging the Democratic and Republican conventions – two discrete, unmissable moments for bloggery in real time. I know, I know. But if I keep the blogging restricted to two bouts of four days each, I’m hoping I won’t relapse.
My other news is that I’ve also committed to two new books.
He ends with this:
I also just want to say how much I have missed our daily, hourly conversation. You remain the best readership I have ever had – the best teachers I have ever learned from – and I truly hope you’ll stay in touch as I move into essays and book-writing again. It’s been wonderful, as always, to bump into Dishheads in real life and be reminded of how precious a thing it was that we had, and how that community for serious ideas and argument is still there – and still vibrant.
And no, this is not an April Fools. With Donald Trump as the GOP front-runner, it seems to me a civic duty to get engaged with this election. I’m sure you’re doing your bit; now it’s time for me to do mine.
Yes it will be sooooooooooo welcome to have Sullivan back — and TMV readers will be seeing many posts quoting him or commenting on his always-excellent long form articles.
The magazine announced his new position this way:
New York Magazine editor-in-chief Adam Moss announced today that writer Andrew Sullivan is joining the magazine as a contributing editor covering politics and the larger culture. He will write features throughout the year, and cover the 2016 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. He begins his new role today.
“I have had the privilege of working with Andrew from the beginning of his career (mine too). He is a major (deep and elegant) thinker and writer whose work has had tangible consequence, and he has written some of the more influential essays I have ever had the honor to publish. He also happens to be a true innovator?one of the first and best political writers online,” says Moss. “Since he stepped away from his blog in 2015, his voice has been greatly missed in our national dialogue. I’m grateful that he will return to writing at New York.”
Sullivan began his pioneering blog the Daily Dish in 2000, eventually hosting it at publications including Time, The Atlantic, and the Daily Beast before launching the Dish as an independent, subscriber-funded website in early 2013. In January 2015, he announced his decision to close the site and retire from daily blogging.
Sullivan was editor of The New Republic from 1991 to 1996, and a writer for The New York Times Magazine from 1996 to 2002. He is the author of several books, including The Conservative Soul and Virtually Normal. A graduate of Oxford University, he received an MPA and PhD from Harvard University.
Yes, it is trite to say it, but say it I will:
If there’s a time when readers across the United States and the world need to get Sullivan’s take, the time is now.
photo credit: This is Andrew via photopin (license)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.