I'm not even sure this is worth linking to.
For it is the very rare Canadian politics or news blog that manages to grab a critical mass of eyeballs and break out of its tiny community of like-minded people; and almost none that sets the agenda. [...]
There's no good reason Canadians couldn't have created some of the most popular blogs, which rarely depend on original reporting that would require someone to have boots on the ground in a particular place. It's not difficult to imagine a sharp blog on North American politics that gets the bulk of its traffic from the U.S. while also mixing in a hefty dose of Canadian issues.
Simon Houpt writes for the Globe and Mail, with a weekday circulation equal to that of the population of St. Catharines, Ontario.
Good job, Robert! Shysters at the Glob & flail knew the acronym, SDA, they were too dull to know that they were exposing themselves in their pink undies.
Quite a stunning display of ignorance there as:
It's not difficult to imagine a sharp blog on North American politics that gets the bulk of its traffic from the U.S. while also mixing in a hefty dose of Canadian issues.
Gee, sounds a lot like SDA. Of course no "progressive" at the mop and pail would ever admit to clicking on SDA which they view as populated by legions of inbred backwoods knuckle dragging neanderthals and thus of positively no significance whatever in the downtown Toronto weltanschauung.
Aside from SDA, there's Steve McIntyre's climateaudit.org which is only the most influential climate blog in the world considering that it blew Mann and his hockey schtick out of the water. Couldn't expect the innumerate imbeciles at the mop and pail to understand even 1% of the mathematics that Steve presents on his blog so it's irrelevant.
And the MSM wonders why it's circulation numbers vs time have an uncanny resemblance to an upside-down hockey stick (hey, if Mann says it makes no difference in the Tijander sediments data, then why worry?)
Correction: "...a sharp, PROGRESSIVE blog..."
We already have our sharp, sensible one.
Correction: "...a sharp, PROGRESSIVE blog..."
We already have our sharp, sensible one.
Right on, rzr!
"These days, if a tree falls in a forest and it's not blogged about, then nobody hears."
Ha ha ha ha ha!
I was going to mangle this quote a little bit to try to increase its comedic value, and make its solipsistic point of view more obvious, but honestly, it is funny enough in the original.
Honey, I finished the Globe:
LIFE
I eat too fast and too much. How I can stop?
I'm trying to remember why I don't read that paper.
People actually spend money on that rag?
What tripe.
My husband's blog BlazingCatFur broke the mosqueteria story AND the anti-semitic madrassah cirriculum story -- those are just two based on original reporting, FOI requests, etc.
Unlike that guy at the Globe & Mail, he doesn't have a juicy salary, benefits -- and corporate protection when he gets threatened or sued.
Wow. Just wow.
PS:
Arnie just left a comment over there.
The funniest part of all will be... if they delete it!
rzr, et al. - It is *very* difficult to imagine a "sharp progressive blog" in Canada (or almost anywhere else for that matter).
(BTW, that wasn't a typo on my part. It really does say "How I can stop?", words in that order, with a question mark.)
'“Sassy, smart writing can happy from anywhere,” noted Rachel Sklar....'
(Yeah, I stole that from a comment at the G&M. Impressive copy editing.)
Here is why they give that Toronto rag away in every hotel, it along with the Starwipe showcase everything hideous and champion all things wrong. Just paying the likes of Jeffrey Simpson and Mallick-yick etal, for anything other than janitorial services is insane. Have not and will not buy a paper, my world is construction for the better, not destruction for self absorbed smugness like every so called reporter who has been "educated" or programmed at Ryerson etc, to be precise.
What, you were expecting a MSM reporter -- from the Grope & Flail, yet -- to do some actual homework??
I really do hope someone at G&M checks where most of the traffic to that article came from.
This strikes as something akin to "The food at that restaurant is terrible but I never eaten there."
Also who follows Kady O'Malley for her blog? I mean her twitter is fine because it is essential a news feed.
The Globe circulation data is from 2007. Of course the legacy media business hasn't experienced any contraction in the last 5+ years...
http://media-corps.com/Media-Corps_print_globeandmail.html
Oh my, it looks like the Globe's weekday 'St. Catherines' is no more. Simon Houpt now writes for a newspaper less than the the population of Windsor, but just a little more than Saskatoon.
Well, it wouldn't be surprising if NatPo couldn't think of the name of any Canadian blogs -- admitting they are aware of them would increase their liability for all of the stories they have obviously strip-mined from BCF, Shaidle, et al. Offtime reading NatPo is like reading a VERY watered down version of BCF with most of the good bits removed and gratuitous "tut tutting" and finger wagging thrown in courtesy of J.Kay. Sure, their grammar is better, but it's no substitute for actual reporting.
Mope and Flail's only excuse is laziness as, last I checked, they don't print anything other than progressive pap.
G&M mentioned last week that they intended to charge for online content. The terms were vague and seemed to modulate as the comments came in--mostly deriding in tone. If the writer thinks he might be able to segue into blog-writing after his own career sinks along with the G&M, he will have to sharpen his writing and research skills.
Well, it wouldn't be surprising if NatPo couldn't think of the name of any Canadian blogs -- admitting they are aware of them would increase their liability for all of the stories they have obviously strip-mined from BCF, Shaidle, et al. Offtimes reading NatPo is like reading a VERY watered down version of BCF with most of the good bits removed and gratuitous "tut tutting" and finger wagging thrown in courtesy of J.Kay. Sure, their grammar is better, but it's no substitute for actual reporting.
Mope and Flail's only excuse is laziness as, last I checked, they don't print anything other than progressive pap.
G&M mentioned last week that they intended to charge for o-n-line content. The terms were vague and seemed to modulate as the comments came in--mostly deriding in tone. If the writer thinks he might be able to segue into blog-writing after his own career sinks along with the G&M, he will have to sharpen his writing and research skills.
What is Simon Houpt?
Black Mamba: "It really does say 'How I can stop?', words in that order, with a question mark.)"
You not like the Globe and Mail's care for the writing disabled?
Mop and Pail Blogger exposes - his blind bias and little else. Another monumental lefty fail - their morbid partisan bias killed the dino media but in this media they wander like children.
How can be this?
ect... ;)
I took a look at the link, read the comments and noticed some friends there.
SDA is great for getting the truth out.
Can we make "How I can stop?" the new "Resist we much"?
Also what is worse?
The G&M not knowing we exist, or JKay and the National Post stealing our ideas -- while insulting us as Islamophobes and bigots?
"You must be logged in to submit a comment".
Journalists are born, live and die in gated communities. In their miserable existence they don't realize there is whole world where people interact with each other.
I clicked his name: "Simon Houpt began his career with The Globe in 1999 as the paper's New York arts correspondent, covering the cultural life of that city through Canadian eyes."
He's a member of the Liberal Arts Mutual Masterbation Society, doesn't know shiite from shinola.
At the same time, that circulation is nearly 1% of Canadians, isn't it?
That's like a US paper with a circulation of about 3 million - half again what the WSJ gets.
The Globe is thus proportionally doing very well indeed.
Kady O'maley's live blog from the Mark Steyn HRC trial contained the immortal post:
"10:45am -- Oh boy! Donuts!!"
Not joking
Invincible ignorance.
'Looks like Simon has a cot in the basement of the Globe and Mail, -- aka, the Probe and Fail -- and doesn't get out much.
Who better to write about the putative dearth of successful Canadian blogs than a guy who is a) largely unfamiliar with Canadian blogs and bloggers; b) unclear about what a blog is, or about the difference between a blog and a site; c) fond of quasi-mass-market leftist American sites that are to a great blog what Freddy Got Fingered is to L'eclisse, and then complains that he can't find the equivalent here in Canada (he lamented on Twitter, for example, that "it's just undeniably true" that there's no Canadian equivalent to Wonkette).
The best blogs provide a *private citizen's* strongly first-person perspective, unfettered by political correctness, employers, or anything even resembling a going-concern media organization. Houpt, remarkably, conflates blogging success with being swallowed up by the media, as when he writes approvingly that that Kos's founder "is now part of the New York Times's growing stable of blogs".
"Bloggers" at the NYT, Macleans, CBC.ca, Drudge, ESPN.com, etc., are only 'bloggers' in the most co-opted, bastardized, badly watered-down definition of the word. The best bloggers - like Kate, Kathy, BCF, Jay Currie (when he was still up), David Thompson (UK) , etc. - are countervailing forces to the MSM, including its "bloggers." If Kate ever decided to become an Uncle.Com -- a house blogger -- for the CBC or Newsweek or the New York Times, she wouldn't really be a blogger anymore, and her new forum wouldn't be a blog. Her current "failure", in other words, and that of other bloggers, is built-in to Haupt's definition of success.
A commenter at a lefty site pretty much nailed it, I think, when he described Houpt's column as "a lazy article written by a dilettante for an indifferent audience."
Robert, thank God for the Scottish Dairy Association!
(joking)
Blogs, like this, BCF and others, have shown up the mainstream media and how that must embarrass them! The mainstream media have thrown away even basic work ethics and certainly never had any morals. They are responsible for their losses.
Pat yourselves on the back, Kate, BCF, Kathy Shaidle and every other witty, hard-working blogger out there. You deserve the praise you get from people who have had it up to their eyebrows with the mainstream media's crap.