Australian Political Blog Roll – a Call for Help

As some of you would know, I am writing a book for Scribe publishers on social media and politics, policy and journalism. As part of the project I thought it worthwhile trying to come up with a list of all Australian political blogs. Such a thing is actually rather difficult to accomplish. The fleeting and fluid nature of the blogosphere means that many blogs come and go, some will will about politics but then drop it as a topic.

The blog rolls of other blogs is often a poor resource. Most bloggers are like me and are very good at adding blogs to the list of links, but very loathe (or lazy) at removing blogs that no longer operate. In my travels I used blog rolls from Larvatus Prodeo, Catallaxy Files, Tim Blair, Club Troppo among others, and I have to say there’s a lot of dead links there.

I also decided to cite the political leaning of the blog and also the sex of the author/authors. Once again such a thing is not easy, and has thus with respect to “political leanings” been a subjective judgement by me – and may be completely wrong, please feel free to correct!.

The sex of the blogger is also not always straightforward. Some bloggers, it may shock you to know, use a pseudonym and thus unless they write somewhere on the blog about their sex it can be difficult to discern. In such cases I have made a few uneducated guesses.

This brings me to my call for help. Given I am a mere blogger, I have no doubt made a few errors – either in terms of political leaning, sex, and possibly even the title of the blog. I present this list asking for help pointing out errors or mine and importantly errors of omission.

Now what is a “political blog”? Again this is a subjective thing. Obviously there are the obvious ones – like this blog or like Catallaxy Files or Poll Bludger. But many blogs write about many issues. Many blogs for example will write about feminist issues or human rights issues or climate change science. Are they political? As a very general guide for me a political blog needs to discuss politicians. If you are writing about sex discrimination in the workforce then yes the issue is political, but if you are not referencing politicians then I have likely left you off this list. As a very loose rule if I’m typing “Abbott” or “Gillard” into a blog’s search engine and I’m getting no responses or perhaps only one or two during last year’s election, then I have left it off this list.

I’m happy to be persuaded this is wrong or too narrow, but I am not after a list of all blog in Australia that discuss issues that may have political aspects. I’m looking purely for those blogs that discuss – and at least more than occasionally – politics.

As to the list I make absolutely no value judgement. While compiling the list I came across some blogs I had not previously encountered that I think are absolute gems; others… well let’s just say I won’t be a regular reader. This is not a “best of” list. If your blog is on or off this list it says nothing about the quality of your writing; purely the subject. Also if a blog is not on here it in all likelihood is not because I have made a “value judgement”, it’s just I missed it – which is why I have put this out there for assistance and for discussion (I know I will have missed a few utterly obvious ones – apologies in advance).

I have used the phrase “Group” to denote any blog where more than one person writes for it. Some of these may be out of date – ie now there is really only one person writing for it. I have left of “discussion forums” such as “Essential Baby”, although obviously these contain much political discussion. Any thoughts on that is again much appreciated.

My general rule on “live blogs” is that they have been written in the last six months (though this is not hard and fast). Some blogs have posts that are more recent, but have also announced they are either ending or “going on hiatus”. I’ve left those of the list. So if your do have any suggestions could you just check that they are still “live”? Cheers!

I have also for the most part left “journalist bloggers” off the list. The Daily Telegraph for example on its blog page gives just about all of its journalists a blog. They are not really blogs. I left Janet Albrechtsen off the list because since the paywall has gone up she (either through choice or management decision) has gone behind the paywall as a “columnist” rather than in front of the paywall like Jack the Insider or Meganomics.

I have also left politicians off the list, though if any wish to make the case for certain ones to be included, please do so.

Anyhoo – here’s the list. Enjoy and any advice and/or suggestions to it are much appreciated.