Time hires Wonkette blogger : What’s ALM paying Elefant and Ambrogi?

Time has hired the former Wonkette blogger, Ana Marie Cox, as the new Washington editor for Time magazine’s Time.com Web site. She’ll coordinate political coverage and write features and essays.

Time is paying Cox to do what she does. Create online content that draws readers to Time.com’s site and strengthens the public’s bond with Time Magazine in general.

Makes me wonder what Bill Pollak, CEO of American Lawyer Media – ALM is paying Carolyn Elefant and Bob Ambrogi? Ambrogi and Elefant track and analyze the postings of ALM’s Law.com bloggers and publish ALM’s Legal Blog Watch. Does ALM appreciate what they have with the two of them?

Though Lisa Stone seemed pleased heading up ALM’s blogs, she left ALM to work fulltime on Blogher, which she co-founded. Lisa was fired up about what legal blogs had accomplished in a short time. If Pollak and ALM understood the power of blogs and the need for them at ALM, would he have let her go?

ALM is the leading legal publisher of law periodicals, publishing law journal newspapers and magazines across the country. Like major newspapers, it’s got to be be taking a hit on revenues as print readership declines and online readership increases. Major newspapers and magazines are increasing online readership so as to offset some of the lost revenue. Among other things, they’re using blogs written by their editors, columnists and reporters.

It will be interesting to see if ALM can keep the two keepers it has in Ambrogi and Elefant and follow their advice in developing a blog strategy.