Screw the envelope… Here are the winners…
: Since there is a popular uprising against this year’s Bloggies, I decided to put my taste where my mouth is and award my own favorites:
THE JEFFIES!
They are just as meaningless as any other award, just as capricious and random and political and spiked with favor. But, just like my copyright, they are mine, all mine.
The nominees? All those guys on the right.
And the winners are (in a break with Academy tradition, I’ll start with the most important first because I have a point to make and this is my show)…
: BEST BLOGGER: Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit and now MSNBC because he gives us so much — so much information, so much entertainment, so many links, so much traffic. Yes, he’s the obvious choice and that’s just the point: Blackballing him from the Bloggies was the best indication of their utter bogusness. A lot of my choices are obvious — and in this new medium, that’s also the point: Awards can point to quality; they can guide newcomers to the best we offer; they can reward the leaders. That’s what a credible blog award should do — but that’s not what the Bloggies are doing, for they’re trying to be too hip by half, too cute by the other half. Note that I avoid the cutsy categories of the Bloggies; my categories are just as obvious — thus, useful — as my awards. [Note also that at most awards shows, the acceptance speeches go on forever. Here, the presenter never shuts up. But on with the show…]
: BEST LINKS: Boing Boing — specifically Cory Doctorow’s contributions. It’s remarkable how a person’s selections — rather than his writing — can have such voice and authority. He puts the H in HTML.
: MOST CURMUDGEONLY BLOGGER: Richard Bennett. Bark=bite.
: BEST NEW BLOG: Gawker. OK, so I know its founder, Nick Denton; everybody in Hollywood knows Michael Caine and they vote for him anyway. I award Gawker because it raises the bar on blogging to a professional level.
: MOST USEFUL BLOG: Gizmodo. What, two awards for Denton? That’s not fair! Right. Life is unfair. So are awards.
: BEST POLITICAL BLOGGER: There are so many to choose from (about 95 percent of all bloggers). But I give the nod this year to Josh Marshall for pursuing stories with dogged determination.
: BEST LIBERAL BLOGGER: Atrios.
: BEST CONSERVATIVE BLOGGER: Kaus.
: MOST FEARLESS BLOGGER: Little Green Footballs. Love him or hate him, he’s a dog with a bone.
: BEST OLD-TIME BLOGGER: I say Doc. Others would say Dave or Dave. But I say Doc.
: BEST BLOG DESIGN: Dean Allen’s Textism. The man respects type in a medium that does not.
: BEST PHOTO BLOG: Quarlo.
: BEST RELIGION BLOG: HolyWeblog. (And yes, there are a surprising number of religion weblogs).
: BEST FOOD WEBLOG: The Red Kitchen.
: BEST LAW BLOG: LawMeme from Yale.
: BEST LITERARY BLOG: Woods Lot.
: BEST BLOG WRITING: Lileks. (I’m surprised I didn’t have more nominees in this category but that’s probably because most bloggers, real bloggers — a club in which, admittedly, Lileks is an honorary member — type before they write or get their writing jollies elsewhere).
: BEST MEDIA BLOG: I Want Media.
: BEST TV BLOG: Lost Remote.
: BEST MARKETKING BLOG: Marketing Fix.
: BEST BUSINESS BLOG: Corante‘s many-headed blog.
: BEST MEDIA COMPANY BLOG: The Guardian‘s Online Blog.
: BEST CORPORATE SUPPORTER OF BLOGGING: MSNBC.com.
: BEST STUDENT BLOG: Matthew Yglesias from Harvard.
: BEST GOVERNMENT BLOG: The Shifted Librarian. OK, it’s a stretch to call this government work — but then again, it’s not. See what a creative and dedicated public servant can do with few resources but lots of energy.
: BEST BLOG PERSONALITY: Oliver Willis. You simply get to know the guy. He is what he blogs.
: BEST FOREIGN BLOG — GERMAN: Der Schockwellenreiter.
: BEST FOREIGN BLOG — JAPANESE: Joi Ito (not that I can understand the rest of them).
: BEST SEX BLOG: Raymi. It’s personal.
: MOST CREATIVE BLOGGING: Tony Pierce. Sometimes, I can’t figure out what he’s doing. Sometimes, I can’t get enough of it. But he always surprises. Always.
: BEST NEW BLOG TOOL: Technorati Link Cosmos (here’s mine).
: BEST VIDEO BLOGGING (VLOGGING): Still waiting; too new.
: BEST BLOG THAT SHOULD BE BUT ISN’T: Clay Shirky — start blogging.
Thanks everybody. Good night. Drive safe.
Sorry we had no pre-show fashion fest; bloggers are bad dressers.
And if I offended anybody by leaving you out, I apologize.(Layne and Welch: I disqualified you because you took long vacations; and Locke: I disqualified you because you are still MIA).
If you hate my list, well, then make your own. Please, make your own. That is precisely what makes blogs blogs: we pick the best; we link.
The truth is, we create our own awards shows every day with every link.
