And was going to blame him. So much for that wisecrack. Looks like I was a viable ecology and a trillion short on that opportunity.

The lack of an answer from management on your question (there was another blog asking that recently, they didn't answer that one either.) is not a surprise, given that on the TPM front page, there's indications of big changes coming, Marshall is hiring someone to be the publisher instead of him:

11.10.09 -- 10:21AM //

TPM Hiring Publisher

TPM Media LLC is hiring a Publisher, the first time we're hiring for such a position. We're looking for someone with extensive experience in the digital publishing and news arenas who will help manage and guide the next phase of our expansion. We also want someone who really knows TPM.

For more on what we're looking for and how to apply, see our job listing here.

--Josh Marshall

Go to his link, you will find not only that the publisher will be the primary manager of our audience growth, mobile media, business development and partnership strategies and have a Key opportunity to help build and grow one of the most innovative and closely-watched web-native news organizations in the country

but also that they are hiring a Social Media & Publicity Associate who must be intimately familiar with the emerging social media world, including key sites and communities, as well as emerging trends in the field.

Given that anyone can start their own blog and Facebook page and twitter etc. for social conversation, I do get the sense that reader generated content on other websites is becoming less popular. Though commenting sections abound on newspaper sites, etc., and seem to be popular, the reader-generated content on sites like HuffPo, etc., once highly promoted, now seem to be fading into the background.

Also seems to me that the commenting on TPMDC generates a lot more traffic than either TPMCafe Reader or Contributor Blogs, and that it's also a pretty separate community of users, just like when it was Election Central. I do recall Marshall pointing out several times on meta threads that the Cafe site costs him money rather than making him money.

There was no editorial response to the post complaining about heavy coverage of teabagger stories, either.

Also note that he still publishes lots of content from readers, it's just the readers that email him, and he has never seemed to consider TPM Cafe users as "his" readers or audience. And he's always done that, he prefers communicating with his audience by email and has never enabled comments on his posts.

Maybe MJ Rosenberg was hogging too much space?

Perhaps I haven't been around long enough but I recall his comments about the advertising for instance (it was memorable because it struck at the heart of what's going on not just on the blog but in journalism in general Macro and what was happening at Josh's kitchen table Micro) it wouldn't be unusual to think this tone had preceded that particular editorial issue.
Also, the 'kindle' talk/planning/sharing etc. again displayed a collaborative, entrepreneurial openness that makes unremarked upon dissappearing of content from the front page seem worthy not just of my interest (someone who's been using my own version of TPM) but of other more frequent, long-term and conventional users.

Is there a story here or not?