Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Friday, January 23, 2009

The Atlantic's New "Business Channel"

The Atlantic has created a business channel, a sort of pasty copy of Bloomberg's site. The new site's design matches the rest of the Atlantic's on-line sites; it is just arranged into a one-stop supermarket of business articles and columnists. Their mission statement includes the following:

Edited by Megan McArdle, who has been lauded by The New York Times' David Brooks as a "brilliant economic blogger," Atlantic Business delivers analysis and commentary from Megan and her team of outside experts, including professors, researchers, entrepreneurs, and journalists. The channel also features commentary from Andrew Sullivan, Marc Ambinder, James Fallows, and other Atlantic writers covering Washington and business. The channel's assistant editor, Conor Clarke, blogs here about economics and also maintains some of the site's standing features, including What We're Reading, our collection of the best business stories on the Web today.


One gets the feeling Megan is part of a nexus of experts that provide superior analysis to discerning readers. One would be wrong, for Megan has proven that she views economics and journalism as a way to promote her self-interest, instead of conducting analysis and promoting understanding.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Edited by Megan McArdle..."

I got a good laugh out of that. She can barely edit a 100 word blog post. Now she's in charge of a whole damn site?

Anonymous said...

Do you think she wears a fedora and makes everyone call her "chief"? Who would make her an editor? She is incapable of doing basic copy editing. As to substance, a good editor has a knack for developing interesting stories that no one else is doing. Megan, judging from her blog, only cites to creepy libertarians who simply reinforce her own warped viewpoints.

I have not looked at her new "channel." But I will guarantee, it's going to be shit until they fire that tall-ass econoblogger's ass.

Anonymous said...

If Megan will be spending more of her time 'econoblogging' and 'editing', where will I turn for crappy recipes?

I can rely on the Asymmetrical Information recipe archive for pancakes or mac and cheese, but what if I have a craving for a peanut butter sandwich or scrambled eggs?

Oh, the humanity!

Anonymous said...

Dillon,
I can't speak for Susan, who runs a household and is no doubt skilled at these things. I just want you to know, if that dark day ever comes, I will be here for you all if you ever need to know how to open canned food or learn to mince garlic.

Susan of Texas said...

Isn't there some kind of assistant?
The channel's assistant editor, Conor Clarke, blogs here about economics and also maintains some of the site's standing features, including What We're Reading, our collection of the best business stories on the Web today.

Thank goodness they're not depending on McArdle for daily updating. The design isn't very impressive, compared to sites like Bloomberg. I guess they aren't planning to serve serious markets, and plan to just push David Bradley's economic philosophy instead.

Susan of Texas said...

Heh, if McArdle stops recipe blogging, I'll be glad to contribute posts on how to make toast.

Anonymous said...

I looked at her new business page, and I have to say that it is really, really shitty. I am sure you're going to get a lot of readers by posting articles extolling the virtues of George W. Bush's handling of the economy. Megan has just two posts and I already spotted one typo. I'm trying to figure out some way to ruin her new site, but don't have any workable ideas yet. Given how stupid Megan is, and how she loves to post rumors she's heard, I'm hoping she runs a false story about something she's heard about a company and the rumor affects the stock price--then the SEC launches an investigation and hauls Megan away in handcuffs.

Susan of Texas said...

Megan will, as always, be her own destruction. We don't have to do anything but sit and watch.