by frog
It’s often been said that, globally, blogging is dominated by right-wingers.
Well, if progressive forces in New Zealand politics were slow to pick up the art (and I’m not sure that they were), then the right/left battle is certainly a lot more even-handed than it was a year ago. Joining the seasoned Russell Brown, Jordan Carter and No Right Turn on the, er, correct side of the ideological divide have been frogblog and, now, KeepLeftNZ. The blog battle is now a much fairer fight.
KeepLeftNZ seems a worth addition to the blog scene, and is a very well-designed site. It describes itself as “a site dedicated to returning a progressive government of the left in the upcoming New Zealand election”. It lists Labour, the Progressives and the Greens as “the good guys”, and National and Act as “the bad guys”. It also has some quirky ads for your viewing pleasure. It will be interesting to see what they come up with as the campaign unfolds.
UPDATE: Some in the comments thread have taken my post to be an implication that I view No Right Turn, Hard News, frogblog, and Jordan Carter as the only progressive blogs worth reading. I apologise wholeheartedly for creating this impression: it wasn’t intentional, and was caused by lazy writing, not pre-meditated snobbery. There are, of course, many other progressive blogs in New Zealand worth reading including (but not limited to): bloggreen, Slow Train Comin’, whoar, and Island Life.
Published in Campaign | Media by frog on Mon, August 8th, 2005
Tags: environment
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Though it intersting, what can be defined as a blog? Is keepleft a blog in the same way Justleft or frogblog is? What about hardnews?
I would have thought that keepleft was more of a website than a blog
Or is this just semantics?
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You’ve got a point, except that there is only one story so far. As the archive shows:
http://www.keepleftnz.org/storyarchive.html
Presumably, after a few weeks of stories it will look more like a blog.
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Hmmm, both Russell Brown and keptleft don’t allow comments. Russell Brown, you the frog blog and Jordan Carter are paid to do this or at least get to do it during working hours while getting paid.
Fairer fight? Next you’ll be wanting us on the right to blog with one arm tied behind our backs!
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fwwog yous staring to get blithe with you exaggerations again, first only a politically correct person could possibly have the gall bladder to include hisself as having ‘correct’ ideaology, and second, i don’t know why anyone let you away with the idea yous progressive, what progress you make fwwog?, where you move forward?, yous is regressive over tax, you backwards looking, look fwwog, you not even carbon updated on the dead coyote yet fwwog, and that history already, yous got one good things going for yous on the left and that a tolerance i donted expect, where as on the right jeez they attacks at the slightest provocation, but donts swell head or you gets to be toad,
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You mean the rest of you get paid for this?
I feel ripped off…
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Lucyna: I don’t mean to sound like I’m jumping to the defence of my blogging brothers (heh), but:
-Russell Brown doesn’t get *paid* to blog. He started and runs the Public Address site, which now turns a modest profit… Presumably that’s the kind of entrepreneurial spirit that the right should embrace?
-I’m pretty sure that Jordan’s blog is a hobby of his, and not one he is paid for.
By “fairer fight”, I just meant that there are now a good number of blogging voices from both ends of the political spectrum…
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And OTOH, if you look at DPF’s monthly blog stats for this month, of the top 10 blogs, only three are lefty, and of the top 18, only 5 are on the left. This is by number of posts, and so Public Address is way down the bottom, but its not a bad rough metric.
While I think the left part of our blogosphere is actually doing pretty well (especially if you consider quality), we are still horribly outnumbered by the Powerline echoers…
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PQ, you are talking out of your arse again, how are the Greens tax policies regressive? What proof do you have that Kyoto is dead? In your head maybe. You are very eager to proclaim that things that you’re against are dead. I seem to remember that on another blog you confidently proclaimed that Sue B’s repeal section 59 bill was dead. Three weeks later it was voted to select committee. Likewise, Kyoto is very much alive.
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yeah..thanks for the hat-tip russell..
as always..the greens look after their own eh.?..like fuck…
you’ve got some site with one fucken story on it and you hail it as a salvation of the left in blogworld..(just you and jordan and russell brown..eh..?..gimme a fucken break here..
you really do let your personal likes and dislikes colour your work..don’t you..russell..?
btw..brown does not run a blog..he does commentary he publishs on the internet..he will allow no open debate on whatever it is he’s banging on about..by definition..it is not a blog..
same old..same old..eh?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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I disagree that a site is not a blog just because it doesn’t have comments. A blog is just a collection of postings in reverse chronological order. The postings may consist only of annotated links to other sites. They may consist only of personal journal entries with no links. It may have comments and trackbacks or it might not. It may have a comments facility but no-one uses it! It might have a blogroll, or it might not. It might be manually made using HTML, or it might use a content management system (CMS). If it uses a CMS it may be software that you install on your server or it may be a hosted service.
See the wikipedia definition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
“Many weblogs enable visitors to leave public comments, which can lead to a community of readers centered around the blog; others are non-interactive.”
Phil, I agree that whoar (and bloggreen and many others) could have been mentioned above too, but there is no need to go on a tirade because your site wasn’t mentioned. Just a simple, hey you forgot about my blog again would have sufficied.
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Technically, yes, Stuey, a blog is “just a collection of postings in reverse chronological order.” The thing is though, Frog was talking “fairer fight”. Your blog and Russell’s aren’t in the same league as even this one because it doesn’t allow comments. That says to many blog readers that you are afraid that your posts won’t stand up to the scrutiny.
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Hmm, I guess there is a technical difference between Stuey’s “doesn’t have comments” and Lucyna’s “doesn’t allow comments”.
If a blog is posted to the web, and nobody responds, is it still a blog?
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stuey..that wasn’t a tirade..that was a snarlette..
y’know, having posted 2,443 items since february this year..many with green/centre-left themes/angles it is a bit rich to hear frog singing ‘alone again, naturally’..
and as you say..i’m not the only other one….(perhaps this is more indicative of the incestuous nature of wellington..y’know..dpf..jordan..and frog…being the only ones that count….bah!.)
and as far as your suggestion stuey, that i should just gently remind frog he/she/it has forgotten whoar again..the word is actually ‘still’..
and seeing as frog won’t mention it i’ll spam shamelessly and note that i read langes’ autobio(?) today..and have done a review of it…that’s at whoar.co.nz…..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Phil: I apologise for creating the impression of thinking that only the mentioned few were progressive blogs worth reading. I have tried to make up for my slip-up above
I am, however, surprised that you’re dragging the Greens’ Campaign Manager into this argument when you have been informed in the past that he has no role whatsoever in determining the editorial content of this blog…
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(insert tuis rejoinder)..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Pip, I’ve never seen you even try to post comments on sir humps. But I assure you, it is possible to do so, you just have to register with blogger.
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sorry lucyna..but i still can’t comment on sir humph..i send a test through once a week or so..
al has mentioned i need to undo my pop-up blocker (or something..)..but pop-ups are up there with spam…and i mean..should i have to..?
although i do note you are moving to the much better wordpress..(but still same hoster..?..and requirement to provide hair samples from your first-born and a reference from your bank manager as a condition of entry..?..)
yours in simplicity of access,
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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It worked briefly, Phil. Did you do anything in between times to stop it from working? The other thing you might try would be to delete all your temporary internet files, sometime blogger gets stuffed up with one of those. I haven’t had to do that for a while, but there was a problem previously where the temp files were causing a problem. If you don’t know how to do that, email me rather chat here.
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