Slugger overlord Mick appeared on Radio Ulster this morning, discussing the growth of political blogging with Westminster enfant terrible Guido Fawkes. If you want to listen, you can download the MP3 clip here, or listen to Good Morning Ulster on the BBC’s site here (interview is one hour and ten minutes in).
Ireland is in the middle of a boom – a running boom. Chances are, even if you have never run a step yourself (apart from some painful P.E. classes many moons ago), someone you know has taken up running over the last little while. Road races in Northern Ireland and in the Republic have seen [...] read our review »
A silly media row about racism just had to figure in the riots’ post mortem. Was the Tudor history expert David Starkey racist on Newsnight when he said: The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate in [...] read our review »
was a great piece, have to say the most telling comment was when one of contributors said (and i paraphrase) blogging is necessary as journalists often have to kow-tow to politicians for fear of losing access.
Nowhere is this more true than Northern Ireland, i find the majority of our ‘journalists’ lacking in critical analysis, no grasp of the bigger picture, and by and large in the pockets of whover happens to be top dog. It’s pathetic at times.
I was interested to hear Mick play down the considerable number of hits this place receives each week. Didn’t he say it was around 40k?
Does anyone know how this compares to other similar site?
Does anyone know how this compares to other similar site?
Not particularly talking about Mick – but I would take all non-audited claims for blog readership with a pinch of salt.
Not neccessarily because they’re inflated – just because they all use different criteria, and web stats are pretty unrealistic at the best of times.
did i say unrealistic? i meant unreliable..
A considerable number of hits could be anything from a 5 second to a 3 hour visit. I’d say to evaluate how popular a blog is you can only do by revealing the amount of regular return visits.
‘Unbelievable’? Or is that too harsh?
Politicians can also be victims of the media. Some will only appear in live broadcasts because they know that an editor can put a very different spin on an interview by careful editing.
Blogging is a subversive activity; it helps to nullify some of the effects of secret deals between governments and media tycoons. IMO that’s good for democracy.
I liked the bit about people being more willing to bring libel action against newspapers because they have deep pockets…read: bloggers are broke, it’s not worth your trouble.
Alexa.com gives a fairly accurate account on website rankings, visits and the other sites that for example Slugger readers also visit.
Alexa”>Alexa info on Slugger