The Denver Post will no longer host its “Gang of Four” Politics West commentary blog. The gang included self-styled libertarian Ross Kaminsky, former Colorado senate president John Andrews, progressive pundit and writer David Sirota and progressive activist, campaign worker and self-described “muckraker” Nancy Watzman.
The experiment drew its share of critics uncomfortable with what they saw as blurred editorial lines. The gang members weren’t staffers at the Post; they weren’t journalists; they were clearly partisans– which was the point. Yet, writing for the Post while conducting their fairly charged analyst-writer careers seemed to further muddy lines already grown faint in the contemporary mediasphere.
The answer on the part of the Post now seems to be to start fresh with Post staff writers, at least according to Kaminsky’s sign off blog, which appeared Tuesday.
We at the Gang of Four have been informed by our editor at the Denver Post that the Post is changing directions for their political blogs (basically aiming to have content generated by employees).
In any case, the move seems to reflect the growth of the media- and blogosphere, where online and offline media are increasingly seen as seemless and where evolving sets of “professional” norms and practices are emerging. At the risk of overstating, this move would appear to be more evidence of a discernible shift, part of a center shift and professionalization of online news media.
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John Tomasic contributed to this post.
