Glenn Harlan Reynolds (born August 27, 1960) is Beauchamp Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Tennessee, and is best known for his weblog, Instapundit, one of the most widely read American political weblogs.[1][2] He has also worked as an author (writing An Army of Davids), a columnist, and a writer for academic journals. He delivered the keynote speech at a meeting at the Harvard Law School to discuss a possible Second Constitution of the United States and concluded that the movement for a constitutional convention was a result of having "the worst political class in our country's history."[1]
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Much of Instapundit's content consists of links to other sites, often with brief comments. (His frequent use of "heh," "indeed," and "read the whole thing" have been widely imitated and are often parodied by other bloggers.) Reynolds encourages readers to explore the wider blogosphere and to fully read articles and posts to which he links. Since 2005, Reynolds has at times added original video reports, shot documentary-style, to the site. He covered the 2005 BlogNashville convention using video he shot himself,[3] and he now has a PajamasMedia video series called InstaVision.
Between early 2006 and early 2010, Reynolds began to host podcasts[4] of "The Glenn & Helen Show," along with his wife, Dr. Helen Smith (who hosted discussions of those podcasts on her own blog, "Dr. Helen"). Both Reynolds and Smith have been more involved with video over the past year rather than podcasting--mostly producing segments for PJM.
Reynolds aggressively promotes the idea that bloggers, using now widely available tools such as digital audio and video, will eventually force established news media to adapt a more agile approach to providing information, though he does not believe that "that blogs will replace Big Media".[5]
Because of the blog's popularity, an Instapundit link to another site can cause the traffic of that site to spike. Such an increase is often referred to as an Instalanche,[6] or 'Lanche, a portmanteau for "Instapundit avalanche". (See the Slashdot effect for a similar phenomenon.)
In 2007, Network theory researchers who studied blogs as a test case found that Instapundit was the #1 blog for "quickly know[ing] about important stories that propagate over the blogosphere".[7]
In 2006, Reynolds released his most important book An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths, which covered the various ways in which modern technology is changing society by allowing amateur individuals to do things that previously only large, well-funded organizations were equipped to do.
Reynolds is co-author of Outer Space: Problems of Law and Policy and The Appearance of Impropriety: How the Ethics Wars Have Undermined American Government, Business, and Society.
As a law professor, Reynolds has written for the Columbia Law Review, the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Wisconsin Law Review, the Northwestern University Law Review, the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Law and Policy in International Business, Jurimetrics, and the High Technology Law Journal, among others.
Reynolds was a finalist for the World Technology Network's 2004 Media and Journalism award. In his remarks, he said:
Reynolds also writes articles for various publications (generally under his full name, Glenn Harlan Reynolds): Popular Mechanics, Forbes, The New York Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, The Washington Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He has written for the TCSDaily.com, Fox News, and MSNBC websites as well.
Reynolds is often described as conservative, but he holds "liberal" views on social issues such as abortion,[9] the War on Drugs and gay marriage. He describes himself as a libertarian[10] and more specifically a libertarian transhumanist.[11] He customarily illustrates his combination of views by stating: "I'd be delighted to live in a country where happily married gay couples had closets full of assault weapons."[12] He is a strong supporter of Porkbusters and moderately supportive of the Iraq War. He has been critical of left-wing transhumanism, which he believes could lead to a Brave New World-like situation of totalitarian government.[13]
Reynolds is a former member of the Libertarian Party.[14]
Reynolds criticized government subsidies to the middle class such as college loans and mortgage subsidies on the basis that they undermine the middle class. According to Reynolds, college education and homeownership are merely markers of an achieved middle class status, rather than ingredients needed for people to enter the middle class. He explained:
The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay in, the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them. One might as well try to promote basketball skills by distributing expensive sneakers.
Reynolds grew up a Methodist but is now a Presbyterian.[17] He is married to Dr. Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist.
Reynolds also once ran his own music label WonderDog Records, for which he also served as a record producer. Other past hobbies include making homemade beer.
Reynolds has also worked as an indie music artist. One of his albums reached the number one album chart spot on the website service MP3.com for several weeks.[18]