By Menachem Wecker
Andrew Sullivan’s blog, recently of Newsweek Daily Beast, draws an estimated 1.2 million unique viewers a month. But that wasn’t enough for him or six other finalists to beat out The Monkey Cage for blogger of the year at The Week’s eighth annual Opinion Awards 2011.
The Week, a weekly news magazine published in the U.S., U.K. and Australia, credited John Sides, assistant professor of political science and one of the authors of The Monkey Cage, with “injecting the wisdom of the academy into everyday political discourse.”
Dr. Sides’ co-bloggers are Henry Farrell, associate professor of political science and international affairs, and Andrew Gelman (Columbia University), Joshua Tucker (New York University) and Erik Voeten (Georgetown University),
The most effective faculty blogs speak to readers outside the academy, according to Dr. Sides. “There is a place for blogs about academic life, of course, but I think it’s a bigger challenge to communicate to non-specialists,” he said.
The Week created the annual award in 2002, and it has been bestowed upon several illustrious bloggers, including Josh Marshall (TPM), Nate Silver (FiveThirtyEight) and Ezra Klein (WashingtonPost.com), who won last year.
“If John Sides and his co-authors weren’t there to bring high-quality, relevant, up-to-date political science to the attention of the wider world, no one would be doing it,” Mr. Klein told The Week.
“Sides and his dogged band of social scientists pipe up, in clear, concise and witty posts whenever the political debate strays too far from the evidence,” according to the announcement in The Week, which also noted that posts on The Monkey Cage are often reinforced by “sharp graphics.”
“After considering a rich field of nominees for Blogger of the Year, the judges felt Sides had not only developed a new template for bloggers but also shown a certain bravery by asserting the right of academics to blog at a time when others have seen their university careers suffer for doing so,” noted the announcement. “The Monkey Cage is an invaluable resource not just for academics and political journalists but for all political junkies.”
According to the inaugural post on The Monkey Cage titled Why This Blog?, the site was co-founded to publicize political science research, provide informed commentary on political events and issues, think aloud and indulge contributors’ non-academic interests.
Though The Monkey Cage attempts to publicize political science research and he hopes it is a service to the discipline, Dr. Sides said it should not be confused with scholarly research.
“I think blogging should factor well below peer-reviewed research and teaching,” he said. “I view it more as a potential part of the service mission of faculty.”
Though he cited several effective economics bloggers – including Tyler Cowen, Brad DeLong, Paul Krugman and Mark Thoma – whose “vitality” has led prominent government officials to schedule briefings with some of them, Dr. Sides said other disciplines, like his own, are lagging well behind.
“It would be a tremendous accomplishment if political scientists could match that,” Dr. Sides said.
“I think faculty blogs can play different roles,” he said. “They can present perspectives that inform university administrators and governance, they can be forums for the discussion of research and they can be forms of outreach to the community outside academia.”