CORRECTION APPENDED

Richard Bradley—author and cutting Cambridge chronicler—began a blog quietly, two years ago last week.

It was February 2005, and the mood in Harvard Yard was not quite as quiet as the blog’s arrival. Bradley’s latest book—”Harvard Rules,” an account of the early years of former University President Lawrence H. Summers—was filling bookstores while at the same time Harvard professors were filling University Hall to protest their president. An unprecedented no-confidence vote would soon fuel the faculty’s revolt, and some observers thought Summers might not survive.

Clearly, Bradley had some more writing to do.

“They may not have much impact or shed much light—hence, ‘Shots in the Dark,’” the proud Yalie wrote about his views and his blog’s name, “but at the very least, I hope they generate some discussion.”

And so they have. Since breaking ground two winters ago, Shots in the Dark has become a motley circus, filled with its own distinct set of acts and performers with Bradley serving as ringmaster. The blog, at richardbradley.net, provides those sitting at their desks anywhere from Mather House to Manhattan with a view of machinations in Mass. Hall and an ear to whispering throughout the Yard.

Although reaching only a few thousand readers each day, according to Bradley, his blog has quickly become an institution for Harvard cognoscenti, as much a part of the Cambridge morning routine as coffee and The New York Times.

The blog is a mess of Harvard—chaotic, highbrow and low. A place where a former College dean debates the husband of a former Harvard vice president about Ivy League athletics while others speculate elsewhere about the immigration status of Yiddish literature professor Ruth Wisse’s cleaning lady.

Bradley’s tone can be catty (“Note to Harvard’s PR team; it’s time to get a new picture of Faust out there”) and his topics tabloid (posting a link to the wedding registry of Summers and his wife, English professor Elisa New). Most of all, he’s provocative, preferring the question mark over other forms of punctuation.

“It’s fun to write,” Bradley said in an interview last week. “While it’s not always responsible and not always right, it does provide a forum for conversations that are relevant but frowned upon.”

Now the editors of 02138, an independent Harvard alumni magazine where Bradley is a regular contributor, are trying to get in on Bradley’s fun and perhaps wake up their online readership in the process. Starting on Thursday, Shots in the Dark will be syndicated on 02138’s Web site as well.

ELI TURNED CRIMSON

Bradley spent three years here as a graduate student in the History Department researching American colonial and intellectual history, departing in 1992.

During his years as a student in Cambridge, he had not yet grown interested in Harvard politics.

“You’re poor and overworked and focused on doing everything you can to get out of there,” Bradley said of the life of a graduate student. “You don’t necessarily pay attention to the larger currents of life at Harvard.”

But after working at John F. Kennedy Jr.’s George magazine and writing a book about the magazine’s late founder—its publication complicated by lawsuits and allegations that Bradley was profiting off Kennedy’s death—the New York writer found himself drawn to Harvard and following its players.

“In the past, people might write about these figures as if the only relevant things in their lives was what happened from the neck up. Their ambitions, their desires, their insecurities weren’t really appropriate to write about when it came to Harvard professors. Journalism about Harvard was really about the life of the mind,” Bradley said.

Professors say that that curiosity left Bradley, much like the university he writes about, well-endowed with inside sources and access to private information.

“I think in the process of researching his book, he became quite knowledgeable about Harvard,” Professor of Greek and Latin and frequent Shots in the Dark contributor Richard F. Thomas said. “Administrators, faculty members, and others were clearly feeding him information which increased the intelligence of the blog.”

Not all have been pleased with the “intelligence” of Bradley’s work. Mass. Hall derided the publication of “Harvard Rules”: Summers’ spokeswoman at the time called the portrait of her boss ”sensationalist gossip.” And though some top administrators and communications staffers read the blog regularly, many privately take issue with Bradley’s ruminations and accounts of University politics.

‘THE GENERAL STORE’

Faculty members caution that Shots in the Dark is best seen as a place for chatter rather than influence.

“Bradley’s book was informative for a period after it came out,” former Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 said, “but I don’t think the blog was ever influential in forming faculty opinion.”

Lewis, among a few other administrators and professors, was prominently featured in “Harvard Rules.”

Theda Skocpol, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, counts herself as an occasional reader, but cautioned that “information and misinformation can travel on the blog.”

Robert D. Putnam, former dean of the Kennedy School of Government, says he depends on the contributions of others to Shots in the Dark.

“Although I admire Bradley’s journalism, I think that the best part of his blog is the commentary from other readers. Especially during the time of troubles over the last year or two, Shots in the Dark...was often the best source for inside information on what was actually happening,” Putnam wrote in an e-mail.

It “became a kind of village message board or general store where I and many others went to get the latest news and gossip,” he said.

While some may read the blog with skepticism, Bradley’s predictions have at times proved uncannily prescient. Back in April of last year, when the presidential search was just beginning, Bradley wrote that “an early frontrunner” was a little-known dean presiding over a small research institution: Drew G. Faust.

In December, when the search committee presented a list of about 30 names to the alumni Board of Overseers, Bradley wrote, “If I had to bet right now, I’d put my money on Drew Faust.”

He’s been the first to report on many Harvard power-moves, including the abrupt departure of former Deputy Dean of the College Patricia O’Brien last July. And his contributors have leaked news of major University appointments days before they became official.

‘DIRTY LITTLE SECRET’

Some professors and known readers of the blog said they were reticent to acknowledge their readership or commenting habits.

Bradley said the anonymity that the blog allows acts as a “double-edged sword.”

“I sometimes think people take advantage of it to hit below the belt...The flipside is that the anonymity allows people to say things that they would fear retribution for if they attached their name,” he said.

“If reading my blog is a dirty little secret for someone,” he added, “then they’re leading a pretty clean life.”

“It’s not an easy thing to do, to put your name out there,” Thomas said, “but on issues I care about, I have.”

Weld Professor of Law Charles R. Nesson ’60, founder of the Berkman Center for Law and Society and a blogger himself, said last week that he enjoys the blog’s democratic spirit.

“I felt as I was reading, it was very ‘we the people,’” he said.

Nesson said, however, the requirements of tenure continue into in cyberspace.

“Tenure is a wonderful institution. Tenure carries a responsibility to express yourself, your true self in the service of universities,” he said.

Bradley described that view of tenure as a “myth” at Harvard.

“The irony of this blog is that it fosters conversation you would think would happen at the university with tenure. Maybe it happens over water coolers and in back rooms somewhere,” he said.

SHOTS STILL COMING?

Summers has always been the leading character on the blog—some would say, Bradley’s obsession. Readers worry that with the selection of Faust as Harvard’s next president, and its potential for steadying what has been a rocky time for the University, Bradley might turn out the lights on Shots in the Dark for good.

According to Putnam, the blog may have lost its relevance already.

“Whether the Harvard community will need [it] in the months ahead, I’m honestly not sure. I’ve found myself reading it less often in the post-Summers era, but I have no idea whether or not I’m typical,” Putnam wrote in an e-mail.

Weary Professor of German and Comparative Literature Judith L. Ryan, who set the stage for a no-confidence vote against Summers last year, said she turns away when Bradley’s attention wanders from Harvard to other issues.

“I’m not a great sports fan—sorry!—and am not as interested in popular culture as Bradley is, so if Harvard disappears from his blog, I’ll be less inclined to read it,” she wrote in an e-mail.

But the blog will not go the way of Toscanini’s or other recently shuttered Harvard gathering spots, Bradley said, because the University remains interesting even without its gaffe-given, Beltway-bred former president.

“I don’t think the institution becomes boring or irrelevant because there is now a president who may be a mellifluous leader,” he said.

Another reason Bradley will continue to tune in to life in the 02138? The magazine that uses a zip code as its name will now be paying him for what he has been doing for free for two years now: waking up Harvard.

—Staff writer Samuel P. Jacobs can be reached at jacobs@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION
The Feb. 25 story "Lights on at 'Shots in the Dark' " incorrectly stated that the publication of author Richard Bradley's 2002 book, "American Son," was complicated by lawsuits. In fact, no lawsuits were actually pursued--Bradley was only threatened with legal action.