Culture11 – a site dedicated to conservative-leaning cultural commentary – abruptly laid off its entire staff this week. While the site’s backers maintain that this isn’t the end, the future looks bleak without an influx of money.
Joshua Trevino chronicles a few key flaws of Culture11. The site sprang up not from a grassroots groundswell, but from a few key investors who apparently did not see a return on their investment quickly enough to justify further expenditures. Trevino argues that other popular blogs started much smaller and were allowed to “grow into” their ultimate size and influence.
There’s another problem with a site like Culture11, which seemed to be intended as a conservative alternative to The Huffington Post. Overt and admitted conservatism turns off a certain audience – usually who would claim to be simply uninterested in politics but extremely interested in entertainment. That’s why the overt-but-unadmitted liberalism of mainstream media outlets has such an impact.
Jim Eltringham 