The Washington Post proves it’s got a ways to go before it complexly “gets” blogs. Their 2004 Best Blogs – Politics and Elections Readers’ Choice Awards is now open and it’s a steaming pile of turd right out of the gate.
Why?
The site requires an annoying registration (even if you’re already registered at the Post)
Nominee for Best Republican Party Coverage – Daily Kos
Nominee for Best Democratic Party Coverage – National Review – The Corner
Now you know why I announced the 2004 Weblog Awards a couple days before I was ready to make the announcement. It’s going to be MUCH better…
Here’s your exclusive first look at the Titanic of blog award ballots:
]]>< ![CDATA[
Legend – Bold (WTF?), Italic (Who?)
Best Rant
Eschaton
Daily Kos
National Review – The Corner
Billmon
Lileks.com
Best Democratic Party Coverage
Daily Kos
National Review – The Corner
Eschaton
Talking Points Memo
Electablog
Best Republican Party Coverage
National Review – The Corner
Blogs for Bush
Daily Kos
Redstate.org
Andrew Sullivan
Best International
Informed Comment
National Review – The Corner
Little Green Footballs
Iraq The Model
Oxblog
Most Original
National Review – The Corner
Fafblog
Lileks.com
Electablog
Little Green Footballs
Best Campaign Dirt
Wonkette
Daily Kos
National Review – The Corner
National Review – Kerry Spot
Eschaton
Best Inside the Beltway
Talking Points Memo
National Review – The Corner
Wonkette
INDC Journal
Daily Kos
Best Outside the Beltway
Eschaton
Instapundit.com
National Review – The Corner [Ed – Make up your mind, inside or outside]
Daily Kos [Ed – ditto]
Washington Monthly – Political Animal
Daly Thoughts ECB 2004
Class Clown
Wonkette
IMAO
ScrappleFace
Jesus’ General
Fafblog
Most Likely To Last Beyond Election Day
Talking Points Memo
National Review – The Corner
Daily Kos
Instapundit.com
Eschaton
Why not a “best new bog” category? *cough*
Sigh…if they were just going to choose blogs randomly, why couldn’t mine make the list? 😉
I wuz robbed.
Daly Thoughts (http://www.dalythoughts.com) is a race jockey site that has some pretty good commentary. ECB = Electoral College Breakdown
Kos gets 7 nominations and Glenn gets 2? WTF?
and…
“Most Likely To Last Beyond Election Day” duh all of them!
and so wuz rusty.
“If course none of the entries are hyperlinked.”
They are now, in JavaScript pop-up windows.
Why does Andrew Sullivan get your boldface? He’s discussed the Republican Party extensively.
Other than the ECB 2004, and the “no names” (I’m right there with you, what is “Fafblog”, anyways?), I think I know how the mentally crippled monkey put this one together. It probably sat on “Screw ‘Em” Kos, snickering like Beavis or Butthead, and listing all the Blogs “Screw ‘Em” Kos likes or shiite’s on.
It’s as good a theory as any.
Lysander
Er…Kevin, the nominations were done by online readers, not by the WaPo’s people. I remember filling out a nominating form myself. Unless they personally intervened to place these nominations on the lists (who knows?), then blame internet democracy, not the Post.
I think this deserves a correction/update.
terrible, simply terrible.
Er…Jeff B. do you think there were only 50 nominations? As I recall there weren’t even nominating categories. I’m sure thousands of blogs were nominated. They didn’t say the ones selected got the MOST nominations did they?
Either way if the numnuts running the contest couldn’t be bothered to get an idea of the slant of each blog, they might have at least asked someone who knew…
Is WaPo digging a hole? Sounds like a chance to get in there and shovel with them, practice creative nominating, support the penetrating insight of the least-competent commie, introduce others to the objectivity of a Gulag-defending Euroweenie.
Leave WaPo a bigger, steamier pile of turds than when you found it and you’ll be raising the chances they’ll endorse Daschle/Feinstein for 2008.
If I ever blog I’ll call myself the Pinko Pundit and I
D’OH! The results are more a reflection of who reads their paper, than the blogs themselves.
I’m guessing, by this time, that most people who use the internet are way familiar with those online polls: one blogger with a level of “popularity” posts a plea for reader vanity votes, they share that, that shares that, etc.
Next thing you know, it’s “Happy Kos Week” or something close to that…unless WAPO can explain that their “votes” were acquired along with limiting one vote per I.P.A., then the whole process is just vanity. All of it, vanity.
I agree about, let’s see….lileks and redstate and blogsforbush…but that’s about it.
Also, I’m curious how many of those blogs nominated themselves. Err, were nominated from the same I.P.A. that they received votes from. Um, you know.
I think that for “Best International,” they meant best coverage of international events.
I voted for Daly. That site is an essential more-than-once-a-day read for its coverage of the state-by-state polls.
For the record I knew who Daly was, but I assumed many readers would not be able to decipher their abreviation. Heck he just hosted the Bonfire of the Vanities. I’d also heard of Fafablog (vaguely)…
The categories themselves are kind of silly, and illustrative of the Post’s MSM worldview. There seems to be an underlying assumption on the part of the Post that “this blog thing” is either just an aberration – just an adjunct to a presidential election that will disappear soon after. And/or that most blogs focus on real inside-baseball political wonk stuff (e.g., I can’t really think of *any* blogs that focus specifically on “the Democratic party” or “the Republican Party” as such.)
Didn’t I just read that billmon is now defunct?
Yep Billmon retired.