Okie Blog Awards Stir Spirited Comments

Oklahoma's growing community of Internet bloggers has an annual awards event originated by fellow blogger Mike Hermes, the veteran who posts at http://www.okiedoke.com/. Every year, Mike conducts "Best Of" voting by bloggers. This year, Mike reports, he's had spirited comments on the "Best Political Blog" category. Here's the story from Mike:

"The Okie Blog Awards were created for the purpose of showcasing well-known and lesser-known Oklahoma blogs, and this year’s Awards were again well received with more blogs being nominated than ever. Thirty-six blogs made the final nomination list for the first time. To date, the 2007 Okie Blog Awards website has received more than 2,000 page views, hopefully opening up many Oklahoma blogs to new visitors.

PART NEWS, PART ANALYSIS, PART COMMENTARY

"Yet, not everyone was happy. It should surprise no one that most complaints had to do with politics. '2 okiefunks and no Mark Shannon. This ‘contest’ is trivial and meaningless!'

"And one Okie blogger lamented: 'The Okie blog awards are conducted by liberals, dominated by liberals and (shocking) won by liberals. Unfortunately all of the 'awards' in the world won’t make their lies into truth or their hatred into votes for Democrats. But it does make them feel important and authoritative. Small fish in an even smaller pond… or in this case, glass bowl.'

"Those weren’t the only complaints. I also received a few suggestions to change some Award categories and/or add to them. One of the suggesters thought the Best Political Blog category should consist of two sub-categories of Best Right and Best Left. While I kind of like the idea, my own sympathies lie toward more non-partisan political blogs, so a third, moderate/non-partisan sub-category would then be in order. Being a simple guy, I thought better of it. However, I have decided to also announce the runner-up blog in each category this year. One reason being that the top two finishers under Best Political Blog have always consisted of both a conservative and liberal blog. Another reason is the slight differences in votes received by the top finishers in many categories. (I had to break a tie in one category.)"

The Okie Blog award winners will be announced at an October get-together in Tulsa.

The definition of "political blog" is of some interest, and I can't say I've been able to figure it out yet. Some nominated in the category seem to me more social commentary than political commentary and a couple defy even that label. Ah well...it's all good fun and notes the growing influence and importance of the Oklahoma blogosphere. ~ Mike McCarville

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