Taegan Goddard's Political Wire

October 29, 2009

Behind the Wall

Ben Smith notes the New Hampshire Union Leader just put its key political columnists behind a subscription wall.

"My instinct is that it's essentially suicidal on this beat. It's a fast road to their no longer being the key political columnists, and a great opportunity for the state's robust blogosphere to really take over the political conversation, recycling news from behind the paywall when there is any."

Red Hampshire: "Taking its most valuable content offline is a risky move for New Hampshire's largest and most influential newspaper. By walling off its political coverage from the Internet, the Union Leader risks becoming irrelevant in the modern political climate. The influence of a political column isn't just on those who read it regularly. It is from sharing and spreading that information far and wide in order to set the convention wisdom within the political world."

Blue Hampshire: "If they think we are all going to run out and buy dead tree ULs to read DiStaso and Company, they're kidding themselves.  My home hasn't seen newsprint since before I started blogging in 2006.  Are they betting on the internet going away anytime soon?"

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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