What do Paul Krugman, Rush Limbaugh, George Will, Thomas Friedman and David Brooks have in common? Not much, we hear you, but they are actually virtually united as the top five in The Atlantic50, a just-hatched feature of The Atlantic Wire, a new digital franchise dedicated to iterating and serving up fresh printed perspectives. We know, we know, the Web isn’t really short on opinions — everyone with a modem has one — but The Atlantic Wire is an attempt to distill the clutter down to the thinkers and talkers who matter. There are editor’s picks, highlighted topics and all manner of rankings of who is shouting down his or her opponents most effectively.
The site, which went live late on Tuesday night, includes a drop-down menu of hotly debated topics –“health care refrom,” “Joe Wilson outburst,” and “Reforming Wall Street” — a ticker of fresh, hot opinion, and clusters of columnists and bloggers arrayed around single topics, and then some blogged opinions from writers at the site about the opinions of others. The meta can pile up pretty quickly, but for those who are hooked on debate — Decoder is a journalist and a eunuch in matters of taking sides — it can be a nice one-stop shop to see what people are blowing hot and cold about. If there is such a thing as “breaking opinion,” this would be the place to look for it, a throbbing real-time Op-Ed page where currency and popularity are more important metrics than policy or political position.
“We see a great opportunity to curate and organize the debate for existing and new readers, minute-by-minute online,” said Justin Smith, president of Atlantic Consumer Media in an e-mail early Wednesday.