for “Best British Blog” in the Weblog Awards. I feel a certain conflict of interest writing this because I also write for Samizdata, another contender. And, dash it, there are many other fine blogs listed, such as all of them. So, er, vote for someone!
Biased BBC is in the running
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I would love to see the BBC covering it if biased-bbc won. A blink-and-you’d-miss-it item like Bhopal screw up (not our fault – It was an ‘elaborate’ deception) or studiously ignored just like Kojo’s business dealings, Oil for fraud, labour sleaze, Arafat’s cause of death,
Why are all the blogs (as far as I can tell) nominated right-wing political blogs? It’s not exactly very representative is it? A hint of (dare I say it) bias methinks…
redken
Someone who posts here has, for some time, been advocating the view that we need to get away from the ‘left wing/right wing’ generalisation thingy and be more … nuanced, maybe, in our descriptions. This usually arises after a rant of mine against the left. I just can’t remember the name of the person who’s view this is though. Can you help? 😉
You can’t seriously believe that the nominations reflect a list of right wing websites. To my mind they are mainly centrist and fine examples of moderation.
redken
For the S blog lists there are various leftie entries. Trouble is that one of them, Daily Kos, posted some hacking code a way to cheat in the voting. This took Kos from low down in the ranking to No 1.
Of course this is the same Kos that complains about vote-fixing in US elections. And the same Kos that rigged some of the voting polls taken by TV channels after the
campaign debates. The Kos that said “Who cares?” after contractors were ambushed and killed in Fallujah.
Fine set of morals.
Okay, for the sake of argument centrist and right wing blogs. It’s still absent of any lefties or even any non-political blogs. Not that that I want to be disparaging to those on the list (but I will be anyway) but these can’t be either the most popular blogs (in terms of hits) or the best written.
JohninLondon – His exact words were “screw ’em”. I view his site occasionally, washing my eyeballs thoroughly after each infrequent foray, of course. ( just thought I would set the record straight 🙂 )
Natalie – voted for you in both categories, good luck!
redken
The Brit blog list is included in a raft of lists – first time this year, I think. And may therefore be unbalanced – maybe because there are very few UK blogs on the left that cut the mustard ?
But don’t worry – the longer-running US lists have some of your nutty friends !
On the Kossacks hacking incident – to be fair, an LGF’er hacked the poll as well. Both blogs have had their tallies adjusted accordingly. A notable difference in subsequent behavior between the two “groups” is that the LGF’er has 1) publicly apologized 2)identified himself to Kevin(Wizbang) 3)identified himself to his university sparing them the work of an investigation, as Kevin is contacting everyone he can identify and lodging a complaint (as if he needed more work to do on this) Quite unsuprisingly, the Kossack remains unrepentant. Cheating is righteous when serving the cause of the left, not MY view, the view of the Kossack involved. And Markos the Magnificent hasn’t rebuked his minion, either. It’s a shame, these awards were supposed to be FUN!
The reason for which there are relatively few leftist blogs in the UK is simple – the lefties have the BBC! They don’t need any alternative. The blogsites in the UK are a growing necessity for people like myself who are fed up with the BBC’s lies (nuances?) and wish to communicate our annoyance. However, this could be a clever ploy by the Beeb to increase market share because nowadays I only watch or listen to catch the bias. What is now needed is the Beeb being caught by blogsters in a super-Rathergate (Bhopal hoax was too small and manageable) – due anytime soon.
Exactly Allan — you beat me to the punch. Lefties don’t NEED blogs. They’ve got almost the entire MSM to play with. Our beloved Hannah Bayman doesn’t need to keep her blog up too frequently, for instance – she’s got plenty of opportunities to bash Bush and the evil KKKapitalists for the Beeb and get PAID for it.
I’m allways shocked that those people who survive on the forced labour of real workers allways claim to “represent” those workers! The hipocracy of the left is astounding.
There is more talk of big job cuts at the BBC. Which chimed in with a prog on Radio 4 today about a banquet in Birmingham for 200 people being thrown for the BBC – in honour of some obscure cause or award ceremony. Obscure in the sense that I have never heard of it – but hey, who cares, they have licence fees to burn, patronage to bestow !
“Our beloved Hannah Bayman doesn’t need to keep her blog up too frequently, for instance – she’s got plenty of opportunities to bash Bush and the evil KKKapitalists for the Beeb and get PAID for it.”
I had never actually heard of Bayman until she was on this website. What BBC shows does she actually appear on?
I don’t think she actually appears on any shows Monkey. I believe she writes ‘local color” type news for the Beeb online. My mention of her was a bit facetious. She is a delightful young woman who keeps a rarely updated blog that sometimes features piccies of Bush as a chimp. It’s not exactly Instapundit if you know what I mean.
Nonetheless, we all expect bigger things are in store for our Hannah and her career with the Beeb. One day possibly even being taken in by a “Yes Man” hoax.
I promised Natalie some time ago I would stop picking on our Hannah, but there I go again. Just can’t take me anywhere.
Rob,
The fact that you presumably occupy a relatively senior job in the British economy whilst being hopelessly inadequate at basic spelling illustrates just why our productivity per man hour lags so far behing the US and Old Europe.
What happened to ‘education, education, education’?
Allan@Aberdeen: “The reason for which there are relatively few leftist blogs in the UK is simple – the lefties have the BBC!”
Um, that really doesn’t make much sense Alan. There are quite a few leftist blogs if you care to look and my point was that none were nominated for this award. And also the Wizbang bloke links to lots of Natalie Solent articles on his site which, I may add, is coming from much the same political standpoint as all the other blogs listed. I propose that either:
A.) He’s wants to push his own personal agenda.
B.) He’s too lazy to read any other blogs than the ones which he already reads.
I’ve scanned leftist blogsites and found them to be generally incoherent and often offensive with nothing approaching the level of discussion available here or on the other blogsites linked to this one. But sites such as this are a result of the BBC’s refusal to abide by the terms of its Charter. Its reporting is leftwardly-biased and takes no account of other perspectives hence the flourishing of blogsites with a mainly rightist viewpoint.
redken
Actually he has included sites such as Kos in the list of nominees. Of course he seldom reads Kos – it is full of obscenity. I trust you don’t read it.
“A.) He’s wants to push his own personal agenda.” Correction, “He wants to (…)”
Allan, stop pushing the focus onto the BBC, it’s totally irrelevant in this instance!
Can someone tell me how these blogs were short listed? If it’s on hit count etc, then I’ll shut up on this one, but I sincerely doubt it is.
redken,
I can’t see how the BBC can be irrelevant (especially in this instance) if it’s the raison d’etre of this blogsite. The political inclination of most of those who post on it (and most other sites) is driven by the fact that we are effectively excommunicated from the media mainstream by the BBC’s relentless bias. Do our views appear on Have Your Say? No. How many times do you hear serious repudiations of the BBC’s agenda on Radio 4’s evening news? Rarely, if ever. The BBC has no control over the blogosphere and it will become a dominant means of news and opinion dissemination (and independent examination) just as it has in the US thanks to Dan, Tom et al at the main networks.
useful summary of how a combination of blog sites and talk radio defeated the bias of the mainstream US media.
Unfortunately the UK so far lacks many really strong blogsites – and mostly lacks robust talk radio. We just get forced to pay for BBC radio bias.
Sorry – here is the link :
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-12_6_04_WB.html
I have checked the link cited by John and it is a powerful item which would, if applied to the UK in normal circumstances, put Hawley and Plett out of work (both on Radio 4 this evening berating the Americans and Israelis). Unfortunately, the capacity the BBC has to determine its own fate is rather strong so I think that its subscription-bias will be polluting our airwaves for some time to come. Additionally, the BBC can restrict the growth of talk-radio through its malign influence over our Culture Secretary.
The reason that the UK lacks really strong websites and talk radio is the fact that the mainstream media is more than capable of doing the job.
The UK print media is infinitely superior to its US counterparts and serves pretty much every political perspective other than outright lunacy. The British aren’t much given to hysterical conspiracy theory, unsubstantiated ‘evidence’ and ultra-partisan ranting, therefore the websites are used for a good laugh and argument rather than chapter and verse on political issues (which is as it should be).
And talk radio is just crap, hence the lack of interest. If we want to listen to idiots ranting on about b*llocks we can go to the pub.