As Article III Groupie previously explained, changed circumstances prevent her from devoting as much time to Underneath Their Robes as she would like. In order for this blog to maintain its position as a leading source of news and gossip about the federal judiciary, A3G needs your help, which she now respectfully requests.
This post describes the reforms A3G will be instituting here at UTR, which are designed to ensure a steady stream of content for this blawg. In the blogosphere, lengthy blogging hiatuses -- like the ones that A3G took in November 2005 and March 2006 -- cannot be tolerated.
So here is what A3G pleadingly asks of her readership, in order to keep this blog alive and kicking:
1. Intern Assistance. A3G expects to do most of her UTR blogging in the evening. Unfortunately, she no longer has the time to scour dozens of newspapers and blawgs for the raw material for her blogging.
So what A3G needs is an intern to collect this material for her and serve it up on a silver platter, in a daily "linkwrap" post, which would be published on UTR. It would be comparable to the round-ups that Liz Aloi does at SCOTUSblog (e.g., this post) or that Henry Seltzer does at Wonkette (e.g., this post), but narrowly focused on federal judicial news and gossip.
Interested in helping out? If so, please make your case, and then email A3G (subject line: "Internship"). Please do so on or before Friday, May 12.
Why should you volunteer to be A3G's intern? First, if you're a reader of this blog, you probably already follow judicial news and gossip closely -- this wouldn't involve much additional work. Second, there may be a modest stipend involved. Third, you may have the opportunity to do more original, non-round-up blogging at UTR. If you have some interesting and original ideas for judicial gossip blogging, A3G is happy to let you use UTR as a platform for executing them.
Note: This additional writing would happen on a case-by-case basis, with the prior approval of A3G. The egotistical A3G does not want to get upstaged by her understudy, a la Margo Channing of All About Eve!
2. Guest Bloggers. Each week, UTR will have a guest blogger, who will blog about that week's developments in federal judicial news. Of course, as a guest blogger, you're not limited to that week's news; you can pretty much blog about whatever you like, as long as you stick to the bread and butter of UTR (gossip and frivolous commentary about federal judges, no substantive legal analysis).
If you have any big or controversial ideas for your UTR guest blogging, please clear them with A3G in advance. Since it's her blog, A3G reserves the unfettered right to edit and even delete what you write -- but she doesn't expect to exercise it much, unless you go off the deep end.
Interested in guest blogging? If so, please email A3G (subject line: "Guest Editorship"), setting forth your qualifications for being an Article III rumor-mongerer. There's no deadline for this -- guest blogger applications will be accepted on a rolling basis.
Note: A3G realizes that some of you may fear adverse professional consequences from publicly trafficking in judicial gossip. So she's happy to allow both her intern and her guest editors to blog under pseudonyms (although she will need to know your true identity).
3. Sponsorship. As A3G mentioned over the weekend, she's now participating in the Google AdSense network. But she's interested in exploring a more profitable arrangement, perhaps with an advertiser that would agree to be UTR's sole and exclusive sponsor.
Although this blog is occasionally salacious, it does generate oodles of publicity (see the links collected in the UTR Press Book, in the left-hand column). If you might be interested in exploring an exclusive sponsorship arrangement, please email A3G (subject line: "Sponsorship").
4. Cross-posting. It's a common practice, engaged in by numerous bloggers who are affiliated with multiple blogs (e.g., Orin Kerr, of OrinKerr.com and the Volokh Conspiracy; Feddie, of Southern Appeal and Confirm Them). There's nothing wrong with it, and A3G will not apologize for it.
Accordingly, in order to provide UTR readers with as much colorful commentary about the federal judiciary as possible, A3G will sometimes cross-post. If you have some objection to the practice of cross-posting, then simply don't click on the proffered links.
Here are a few recent Wonkette posts that may be of interest to readers of this blog:
- The Roberts Court Is In Touch With Its Feelings
- Anna Nicole Smith: One Merry Widow
- Happy Birthday to Justice John Paul Stevens
- Scalia's "Proudest Thing"
- various posts about the "Fingergate" scandal involving Justice Scalia (here, here, here, and here).
Okay, that pretty much sums it up. Article 3 Groupie thanks you for your patience in reading through this lengthy post. She looks forward to working together with you, her beloved readers, on a new and more collaborative UTR.
So let's bang some gavels, swish some robes, and make some noise!
Who says all the good jobs are going to the immigrants?
Posted by: Nasty, Brutish & Short | May 12, 2006 at 02:24 PM