In happier times, the Above the Law blog, which bills itself as a “legal tabloid,” riffed about Jerry Springer speaking at Northwestern University Law School’s commencement and Clarence Thomas’s love of Egg McMuffins. These days, it is a hot spot for rumors and real-time reports on big-firm layoffs — and features, such as an out-of-work lawyer’s “Notes From the Breadline.”
We are in the worst economic downturn of the Internet age, and bloggers are making the most of it. Because of the diversity of voices, their ability to cover niche subjects and the infinite capacity of the Web for words, blogs have been able to take on the recession from every conceivable angle — straight-up reporting, economic analysis, advice for the unemployed and more than a few servings of paranoia.
The Great Depression of the 1930s was documented with black-and-white photographs of migrant workers and film reels of bread lines. In this economic crisis, the iconic media coverage could be the furious postings occurring in the blogosphere.
There are blogs starting up that aim to be one-stop sites for information — like recessionwire.com, founded by two downsized Conde Nast Portfolio editors. Its subjects range from a just-laid-off checklist — practical advice on what to do in the first hours, days and weeks after losing a job — to getting by with subsistence gardening.
Blogging economists are offering the sort of analysis once available only in specialized publications or graduate school seminars. Baselinescenario.com, whose writers include a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, drills down on issues like the A.I.G. bailout. Greg Mankiw, an economics professor at Harvard, writes a conservative blog heavy on theory. (A recent entry: “Team Obama on the Unit Root Hypothesis.”)
Thrifty-living blogs have been around for awhile, but the…