No lawyer blog, it’s the Wonkette

Don’t think blogs can have a a big impact and attract wide readership? Welcome to the Wonkette, described by our Seattle Times as “the white-hot center of Washington’s most salacious gossip.”

The Wonkette.com, started in January by Ana Marie Cox, is a political gossip blog generating incredible buzz inside the Beltway and beyond to the tune of 2.2 million pages views in May. This all comes from a mac laptop on a desk in a guest bedroom of the Arlington home that she shares with her husband.

Lawyer blogs are not going to reach this level but if haven’t already, check out the Wonkette to get an idea of how far blogs can go.

I first heard about the Wonkette when Cox received national attention after blogging about the salacious online sex diary called Washingtonienne kept by former Senate staffer Jessica Cutler detailing her exploits – sometimes involving cash gifts – with the unnamed powerful and semi-powerful on the Hill. Not only did Cox link to Cutler’s R-rated site (which eventually contributed to Cutler’s firing), but she met her to drink and dish, matching the self-described Washingtonienne’s Southern Comfort glass for glass with white wine.

Cox gets her news from other reporters by reading The Washington Post and The New York Times in the mornings and gets a news summary from her intern. She does not report the news or act as a journalist, she just puts an entertaining spin on things.

Wonkette is one of a number of blogs Internet entrepreneur and British blog magnat Nick Denton backs. He is also responsible for the gadget-savvy site Gizmodo, the New York media and celebrity rag Gawker and porn site Fleshbot. All the blogs run paid advertising. Denton prides himself on plucking Cox out of relative obscurity in Lincoln, Nebraska where she was doing a personal blog, the Antic Muse.

Is there a lesson for lawyers here? Probably not. You would have to be writing a hell of an entertaining blog for Denton to save you from the mundane practice of law.