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Steve Gilliard
The new News Blog
Well, here's some good news: some of the folks from the News Blog, the platform of the late Steve Gilliard, are carrying on his mission at a new venture - the Group News Blog.
That's a fine development, and we wish them all the best. Blogroll addition forthcoming.
The New York Times Obituary for Steve Gilliard
Fair use be damned, here's the full NYT Obit for Steve Gilliard:
Steven Gilliard Jr., 42, Dies; Founder of Liberal Political Blog
By NOAM COHEN
Steven Gilliard Jr., a political journalist who found his calling as a combative and influential blogger on the left, died on Saturday in Manhattan. He was 42.
He died after having been hospitalized at Lenox Hill Hospital since February because of heart and kidney failure, said his cousin Francine Smith, a spokeswoman for the family.
From his perch at The News Blog, whose advertisements and donations paid for his modest living expenses, Mr. Gilliard offered his powerful readership a blunt and passionate take on the events of the day. He was one of fewer than a dozen liberal political bloggers to make a living from his blog, said Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the founder of the Daily Kos Web site, to which Mr. Gilliard had been an early contributor.
Mr. Gilliard was born in Harlem and attended Hunter College Elementary School and Hunter College High School before graduating with a degree in journalism from New York University.
After working in print journalism, Mr. Gilliard migrated online, working for a Web site, Net Slaves, that chronicled the lot of the tech worker during the dot-com boom. His involvement in online political writing received a critical boost when Mr. Moulitsas chose Mr. Gilliard to help create material for the Daily Kos site at a time when it had 4,000 visitors a day; it now has 500,000 a day.
Mr. Gilliard eventually left Daily Kos to create The News Blog.
Mr. Gilliard’s survivors include his parents, Steven Gilliard Sr. and Evelyn Lillian Gilliard of Manhattan, and two sisters, Valerie Gilliard and Roberta Smalls, both of Massachusetts.
In what is a now-familiar story among Internet collaborators, many of the thousands who posted online reactions to Mr. Gilliard’s death wrote that they had known little about him, even the fact that he was black. Others, though, mourned the loss of an African-American voice in the liberal blogging world. Those closest to him offline similarly knew next to nothing about his life as blogger.
“Most of the family didn’t know what he was doing on the Web site,†said his cousin, Ms. Smith, who said his parents did not own computers.
Interestingly, the obituary is presently the second-ranked article on the entire site by blog links.
In memory of Steve Gilliard : Secular Blue America
Back in 2004 I published this piece at culturekitchen as an elections post-mortem and a response to pieces written by Steve and Chris Bowers.
I have had people research my work for either papers or dissertations and so ... if there ever was an "it" blog post for my online political activism, this has to be the post. This post informs all my political activity and the issue that keep me up at night.
And I have to say that neither Steve nor I could have written had we were not only black but from socio-economically blended families with some rich, some in the middle, others working and some just poor. This is what makes us unique in the political blogosphere.
So without further ado, Secular Blue America.
November 11, 2004
Secular Blue America
by Liza Sabater
I got to Steve Gilliard's News Blog : They voted for this mess via another awesome post, written by Chris Bowers, at MyDD :: Yes, These Are Conservatives.
Gilliard's is one long-winded rant that starts out hitting liberals good but ends up really tearing appart the post-election appeasement façade of the extremists ruling the Republican party. I wish he had spent more time flogging the "Liberals". Here's why : read more »
Remembering Steve Gilliard: Steve on Atlantic Yards
Was reminded of this by Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn. Steve Gilliard was one of the top bloggers and his death is quite a loss.
This photo from Campus Progress:
One topic he wrote about was the sheer insanity and hypocricy of Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. This is only part of a long article he wrote for his blog, The News Blog:
Forest City Ratner basically told working class black people that they would get jobs and shiny new homes. Which is probably not going to happen.
Atlantic Yards is overscale, ugly and will destroy the character of the neighborhood. But more importantly, those jobs will not materialize, because they never do. Unless there are firm committments, nothing happens...
Lets understand something. Most of the people Ratner bougtht off want jobs and have ZERO power to enforce any deal... read more »
Steve you are one of the reasons why I am still blogging
The Rude Pundit is responsible for my finally meeting Steve. Lee had just released the CD of his awesome one-man show and he threw a party to mark the event.
At he time I was a homeschooling mother of two and sometime consultant so I had barely any time to drop by. Lee said the magic words : Steve is coming.
O. M. G.
Having the opportunity to meet two of my superheroes in one night was too good to pass up and so I begged and implored the patriarchy at home to release me. As fast as I could, I oiled myself into a pair of jeans and scooted to the West Village.
When I got there once I gave a big hug to Lee I jumped all over Steve and to say he was a bit taken aback but loving it is not to be off the mark. I needed to let him know how much he meant to me as a writer, as an activist and as a blatina. I needed to cram as much in as little a time and thusly went to town.
Believe it or not, he blushed.
Steve was a muscular writer but in person he was could be quite unassuming. "Stop it!" He said it many times and so after the fangirlishness susbsided, we just shot the shit. read more »
