1. Sara Schedin: 464
2. Ylenia Lemos: 439
3. Stephanie Ott: 388
4. Joanna Aniel Bidar: 338
5. Raj Sandhu: 303
6. Christine Fleitz: 279
7. Linda Sharkey: 279
8. FiFi Afobe: 225
9. Zlata Rodionova: 209
10. Dursaff Ibrahim: 207
11. Zeenat Iqbal: 189
12. Danielle Stacey: 137
13. Hoa Pham: 135
14. Laurie-Anne Bonne: 130
15. Rima AlRakhawi: 118
16. Sarah Ponn: 83
17. Emelie Danielsson: 86
18. Radka Slovackova: 50
19. Carolyn Charlton: 37
20. Monika Braun: 29
Earlier in the semester I introduced you to Theyworkforyou which provides online coverage of almost everything that is said in parliament. Here’s how it can be used to devastating effect.
In February Hazel Blears, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, used an article in The Guardian to accuse George Monbiot – a campaigning environmental journalist – of using his position as a political commentator to contribute “to the very cynicism and disengagement from politics” that many people seems endemic in today’s society.
In a devastating riposte Monbiot delves into Blears’s voting record on theyworkforyou.
He then uses the publicly available online record to dismantle her claims sentence-by-sentence. It’s a brilliant piece of online journalism.
Here’s this week’s league table. Again figures are represented in page visits and taken from Sitemeter. Good week for Stephanie Ott, Sara Schedin and Joanna Aniel Bidar who each showed what can be done in a week. Still no sitemeter on several of your blogs, including some very good blogs from Frank Mitchell, Tim Foss and Beatriz Arrorro. It’s not too late to make a mark …
1. Ylenia Lemos: 279
2. Raj Sandhu: 250
3. Linda Sharkey: 248
4. Stephanie Ott: 238
5. Sara Schedin: 237
6. Christine Fleitz: 199
7. Joanna Aniel Bidar: 178
8. Dursaff Ibrahim: 140
9. FiFi Afobe: 131
10. Zeenat Iqbal: 115
11. Hoa Pham: 114
12. Danielle Stacey: 112
13. Zlata Rodionova: 77
14. Sarah Ponn: 71
All figures are given in page views, according to Sitemeter statistics taken on April 03 at 4pm. Here’s the top ten with three weeks to go …
1. Ylenia Lemos: 224
2. Linda Sharkey: 217
3. Raj Sandhu: 200
4. Christine Fleitz: 165
5. Zeenat Iqbal: 103
6. Hoa Pham: 94
7. Stephanie Ott: 75
8. FiFi Afobe: 66
9. Sarah Ponn: 59
10. Zlata Rodionova: 58
WordPress is a great publishing platform, but one thing that I find really annoying are the Snapshot previews. If you find them annoying too, here’s how to disable them.
Just thought you might like to read these two important essays. Both deliberate on your future to such an extent that I’d say that both make for required reading:
1) Clay Shirky: why newspapers are doomed:
“Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.”
2) Steven Berlin Johnson: the future means more news, lot less:
“There is going to be more content, not less; more information, more analysis, more precision, a wider range of niches covered. You can see the process happening already in most of the major sections of the paper: tech, politics, finance, sports.”
Blogging on your own is all very well. But sooner or later you will want to to find an audience for it. Before we set about this new task, could you all register at Site Meter – an external web counter that will track exactly how many people are visiting your site. Once you’ve registered, could you add the button widget (see below) to your sidebar?
By no means a definitive list, but here are the posts that I took most notice of this week.
1) Ylenia Lemos on some good news for coffee lovers.
“This could help improve the health of tens of millions of customers who, without knowing, are consuming high-calorie foods. Nutritional information is still not displayed in coffee shops’ “freshly made products”, making customers unaware of the dangers of sandwiches’, snacks’ and pastries’ load of saturated fat and salt.”
2) Tim Foss looks behind-the-headlines on the recent ‘wildcat strikes’
“The wildcat ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ strikes which took place at the beginning of February were widely publicised in the media as racist demonstrations, run by the BNP and attended mostly by far-right thugs. When I first saw the strikes on the news, as a lefty born from immigrant stock, my initial reaction was one of disgust followed closely by dismissal of the strikers and the motives behind their industrial action.”
3) While, Greg Taylor notes that the government might soon cap the number of foreign workers:
“Whether or not a limit will actually be introduced is unsure. However if British workers keep on losing out to immigrant workers the government will be under increasing pressure to propose a limit, especially as the recession worsens. It is ridiculous to think that the British workforce is losing out to immigrant workers even at a time so bad as this.”
4) Christine Fleitz continues her forensic examination of the issue of HIV/AIDS in Swaziland:
“A major issue in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Swaziland is social denial. A vast majority of the countries population refuse to admit losing their loved ones to the disease because it is considered to be a ‘taboo’ subject.”
5) Sarah Ponn highlights the growing practice of “sex-selective abortion”
“The global abortion debate has been inextricably linked to the feminist ideals of freedom and choice. But the availability of modern sex-determination technology is giving rise to a horrifying trend of sex-selective abortion, particularly in Asian countries.”
6) Maria Orihuela impresses with a sharp preview of the National Gallery’s new Picasso exhibition:
“Picasso: Challenging the Past explores Picasso’s work and his influences drawing subtle comparisons between the Spaniard and several other artists including household names of their own such as Eugène Delacroix or Édouard Manet. The exhibition illustrates Picasso’s admiration for European classical painting with a special mention to his fellow Spaniards, Diego de Velázquez and Francisco de Goya, to whom Picasso paid a tribute in various occasions including his famous 58 versions of “Las Meninas”.“
7) Hoa Pham examines the latest child protection policy in the UK.
“Lord Laming’s UK Child Protection Protection Progress report was published today following the request from Ed Balls, children’s secretary. It is one of the most heated topics in discussion in the House of Common. [As to be expected] it has received attention as well as enthusiastic responses from everybody: from members of the House to social workers and anybody else who felt the urge to take action”
8.) Joanna Aniel Bidar respondes to the LSE’s Proffesor Norman Rose:
“A two state solution? Do give me the freedom to express one thought on this point. Leaving Palestinians two pieces of land as Gaza and West Bank? Please Mr. Rose, we need more than floating words and with your mental judgement you could come up with something more valid and acceptable than denying where the Israeli state has violated basic human rights.”
9) Laurie-Anne Bonne waxes lyrical on the state of London’s public areas:
“London. Urban, beautiful, modern, GREEN London. I love London. Seriously. It reminds me of us women. Sophisticated, glamorous and attractive on the inside but still, having a huge hypocritical secret.”
10) Danielle Stacey feels the pain of the retail recession:
“Anyone involved in retail right now, knows that they are playing a waiting game. Its like being aboard the Titanic; a great big iceberg, no lifeboats and you end up clinging onto abit of driftwood for dear life.”
Bubbling under: Jess Duncan; Tamara Obeng; Radka Slovackova; Linda Sharkey; Emelie Danielsson
Some notions of the fourth estate [wikipedia]. The link introduces the media’s perceived role as a guardian of democracy and defender of the public interest. Anyone with even a passing interest in serious journalism needs to get to grips with such notions;
A history of Hansard [wikipedia];
Official Hansard; verbatim reports of parliamentary debates and written answers;
Hansard Archive 1803 – 2005
They Work for You – an alternative version of Hansard (highly recommended).
Biography of John Wilkes (right) “libertine and libertarian”. The man who led the campaign to win the right to report from parliament.
Just to say that the last week has been easily the best week so far. Most of you are now blogging with some confidence and that’s great to see. There is, moreover, a clear gender divide emerging. With a couple of exceptions (and it is a couple) the girls are racing ahead of the boys. Here’s why:
This week’s star performer is Zlata Rodionova who’s Islington Green is a good example of how a global issue (climate change) can be applied to a local area (Islington) to great effect. Snappy title too – a really effective but simple pun.
I know I’ve singled her out already, but Raj Sandhu is worth noting again. This time for a lively account of how local surveillance is affecting her daily routine. Raj has built a blog with a variety of different types of stories and different lengths. It is short of pictures and the blog title is not quite right but it’s building into a fine body of work.
I also thought that Hoa Pham’s brave work on childhood abuse is both technically accomplished and journalistically significant; Joanna Aniel Bidar‘s “Gaza through the open lens” is belatedly coming into focus and Laura Jane Thompson is motoring away, although I’m not sure if her most recent post re-cycling the names of the winners of the NME awards is on-topic. Why read it there rather than at NME.com?
Mentions too to the visually arresting “Murdered in South London” by Tamara Obeng; a first look at Beatriz Arroyo’s thoughtful elegy for the tropical rainforest; while Ylenia Lemos and her blog on student health care is also worth a look. In terms of writing flair, Kiki Pattison Smith’s look at animal welfare demonstrates a whole heap of potential. Note how many original turns-of-phrase she deploys, in each post. Indeed “more than you can shake a cattle-prod at”.
I would really have liked to have featured more boys in this list but, alas, they are being outflanked by more mentally agile and industrious girls. Come on lads, surely you can step up before Friday …
City Bloggers 09 