Article on left wing blogosphere

Philip Matthews has an article in Stuff on the left blogosphere., which is an interesting read. Slightly disappointed that he repeats an accusation that I get paid for blogging (if only!) and fails to mention for The Daily Blog editor was on the payroll of two political parties – neither of which he revealed until right blogs exposed it.

One extract:

“Right across the Left there are conversations,” says Asher Goldman, co-founder of the newly- launched blog On the Left. “We lost the election, what does that mean?”

Is it even possible that bloggers are part of the problem?

Goldman agrees that blogging and tweeting are no substitute for real-world political activity. It should be an extra not an end in itself.

“A successful blog for me is one that has good stuff to contribute, a community built around it that is participating in useful, productive discussion and a few visitors, hopefully,” Goldman says. …

Goldman is a Green Party member, co-founder Stephanie Rodgers is a Labour member and both believe their new blog should be broadly across the Left rather than overtly party-based. They also want it to be fun, which has not traditionally been a feature of Left-wing politics.

I wish Asher and Stephanie well. If they can make their blog fun, rather than a daily dose of hatred, then they should do very well. It is important to have strong voices from across the political spectrum online. The Internet is a wonderful medium that allows anyone to broadcast – and how influential and listened to they are, is mainly a function of how they conduct themselves.

They already have 13 authors, several of whom used to blog at The Daily Blog. I’ve added them to the blogroll on the left sidebar.