Dissed By Howey
If you get your regular dose of The Howey Political Report (or the Daily Briefing) you’re familiar with his every once in while, very unscientific, poll that he runs from time to time. Sometime it’s about issues, sometimes it’s about candidates, but this time it’s about the most influential blogs in Indiana. He lists a few that are well deserving of being in the poll (e.g. Frugal Hoosiers, Blue Indiana, Taking Down Words, Advance Indiana, Indiana Barrister), but for some reason he left us off. Why?
Maybe it’s because we haven’t been around as long as the others. If that’s the case, that’s fair and we probably need to earn our stripes. But here’s the thing. In the short time we’ve been around, we’ve interviewed State and Federal legislators and candidates, talked to Presidential candidates, been interviewed about blogging and their affects on Indiana politics on Abdul in the Morning and generally done the stuff that the other blogs are doing. And we’re doing it just as well if not better…at least we think we are.
Well, I’m asking all of our readers to head to Howey’s poll and vote “Other“. That doesn’t mean you’re voting for us, (though I hope in your heart of hearts you are), but it could very well be for your own blog or your friends blog.
So vote your conscience! VOTE OTHER!
January 31st, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Other is in the lead!
January 31st, 2008 at 5:34 pm
I agree Josh, we’re doing a pretty good job!
January 31st, 2008 at 5:43 pm
I just went to vote but I can’t find the poll, the only poll that I saw was regarding the Democratic gubernatorial ticket.
January 31st, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Scroll down and it’s under polls. It’s still there with “other” still leading in the polls.
January 31st, 2008 at 6:14 pm
How dare Howey diss HA? And the DFB too!
*OTHER*
January 31st, 2008 at 10:08 pm
I agree completely with your post. He left my blog off as well. Perhaps it was a space thing, but he could have had primaries to whittle down the list ;). I voted “other”, mostly as a protest vote for my blog, but if I could vote twice, you’d get the second one!
January 31st, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Thanks Kurt! I’d take your second vote.
February 1st, 2008 at 11:21 am
A couple things.
I have found some interesting things here from time to time, and appreciate live blogging when you did it.
However, things that would make this rise to influential would be actually breaking stories of new info, not repeating info posted by some of the contributors on other blogs (just link to it), and, above all, it seems like a lot of times things I read here seem to reflect a lack of understanding how the processes work in state and local governement and state nad local political process.
Also, the posters here seem new to the process by proposing or discussing things without knowledge of the history of the issue in state and local govt. and politics.
Just my 2 cents.
The more you are around the more you will have a sense of both history and how things really work, so you can speak with more weight.
February 1st, 2008 at 11:57 am
Brianne, that could be a fair assessment. I will say that I’ve been around the process for almost 8 years now (that is, since I graduated college) both at the state and federal levels. Jim is the Whitley County GOP Chairman, used to work for Focus on the Family in a grassroots position before starting his own consulting firm here in Indiana and Scott heavily active in politics in Southern Indiana in addition to being the treasurer for the Harrison County Republican Party.
Granted, others may not have the education and experience we do, they are indeed improving their experience and their resumes.
It should also be noted, that we do have full time jobs in addition to working on this site, so information does come by a little slower here. But linking to other blog stories from around the state, when other may not, may direct you to a new blog you didn’t know about or hadn’t considered reading. That could be construed as some sort of influence.
Either way, we are continually working to improve and thank you for your comments.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
Good, keep trying.
I just don’t think you have the right to whine about not being “influential” when most of the people in the Indianapolis political know are going to laugh at you for things like OMG PAT BAUER DIDN’T POST A HOUSE SCHEDULE! on a committee day, or “Why doesn’t the Mayor doesn’t contract for a privatized jail?” which shows lack of long history of exisiting privatized jails (Jail II and Liberty Hall) in Marion Co. that were much in the news in their day not so long ago.
But keep trying.
Also, one more thing. For every interesting story on this blog, it seems like there is far too much insider back and forth between contributors via posts. Objective readers, whether political junkies or music fans, get turned off by that kind of blog pretty quickly.
OK, I’m done now.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Brianne has some challenging observations.
I am not convinced that breaking new stories necessarily makes a blog (or any other information source) influential. We already have too much information. To be influential, we need to effectively determine what information is important and then understand that information well. So the fact that the majority of posts here are based on links to other information sources does not bother me. It also indicates that bloggers are doing their homework and trying to get the facts correct.
That being said, there are improvements that can be made and it is good to take stock from time to time.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Brianne, please make those comments about specifics like the House Schedule and Jail issues with the post! The point of a blog is that the collective knowledge can be leveraged to help everyone get a better perspective. That is the part of Hoosier Access that I would like to see improved that would make it a far more influential site.
But saving your comments until it becomes a critique means that you were paying attention to the posts but did not choose to help the community with your knowledge of history.
February 3rd, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Phsaw, don’t worry Josh. We didn’t get nominated either and we DO original reporting. *grins* I voted “Other” too. Maybe all of us “Others” can get together and claim victory for the rest of the blogosphere. LMAO
Brianne is on to something though… Keep up with the live blogging and original opinion pieces. Recycled news is good, but balance it out some.