The Wardman Wire

I promised Kristine, who writes good media blog from Scandinavia, that I’d look at the current mini-spat about the claim that “UK Newspapers run the Best UK Blogs“.

It needs a “kitchen sink” point-by-point post to do a proper response (the claim has some substance, but in my opinion is only half-right), but that will have to wait.

In the meantime, here’s Iain Dale in the Guardian last Sunday, commentating in passing on UK political blogging while doing an interview about Total Politics:

‘I think blogs as a phenomenon are on a plateau at the moment,’ he says. ‘Readership is growing but I don’t see any great innovation. I see the mainstream media organisations embracing blogging and doing it quite well, eclipsing them in some areas. I’m really disappointed there have not been five or six other people that have built a mass readership. There are only four blogs [Dale's own, plus PoliticalBetting, ConservativeHome and Guido Fawkes] that have done that, and there’s a huge gap between the four of us and the next 10.’

I think he’s basically right.

Innovation is quite thin on the ground at the moment. The most noteable initiative going is probably Sunny’s move to build a campaign strategy and axis across blogs, the media and activists. Something those of us on the centre-right will need to watch, as the next stage is likely to be to try and build a particular narrative of events.

A year or so after starting, the thing that continues to surprise me is the size of the gulf - pretty much 2 orders of magnitude in traffic - between the four blogs Iain mentions and the “rest”.

I’d add two more to these four: Slugger (for their penetration of the smaller space that is Ireland) and Samizdata (who are arguable not really a UK political blog - being more international).