Monday 17 January 2011

Palin Post Follow-Up

So the one and only post on this blog to ever focus on former half term governor Sarah Palin has generated orders of magnitude more attention than anything else I've ever written - with extensive mainstream media coverage (now including this think piece from today's Evening Standard), and nearly half a million views of the page. I've written a short follow up that I prepared last week, but put on hold following President Obama's extraordinary and moving speech in Tucson last week. The speech, and the events in Tucson overall, just seem so much bigger and more important than anything the former Governor's Facebook team is or isn't doing. If you haven't yet seen or read the speech, I'd urge you to take a moment and do so now.



I'll be posting my follow up post later tonight, including a matching look at Barack Obama's page and some thoughts on the insight this whole experience has given into the pathology of mainstream media coverage (and even blogger bandwagonism).

But before I do that I wanted to welcome my new readers from The Evening Standard, those who sought us out based on coverage in The Telegraph, and of course those who found me through MSNBC's The Last Word, or the Atlantic, or through Dan Savage, or from one of the many, many bloggers or forums that wrote about the story.

I'm proud of the work that I did in that post, and I worked hard to make it as fact-based and objective as I possibly could.

But for those of you who are new here, you should also know that this is not a Sarah Palin blog.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well; the reason being, you are the first person to actually document the policing of her website. Everyone has speculated, and knew it was happening- you documented it.

And for that, Congratulations!

You made my bookmark list of political blogs to check often.

It's an elite list, including only The Immoral Minority, PoliticusUSA, and Of and From.

Eva Quinby said...

I don't bookmark willy nilly either but this one is tagged.

Not only was your reporting of her website antics fact-based and objective, aspects of your perspective were funny as hell. I appreciate you giving her the benefit of the doubt - even though I wouldn't give her the time of day.

Okay, maybe I would but only if she's holding a gun. I like to keep my options open.

Obama London said...

Thanks both! Very honoured to take a place on both of your blog rolls. And I will continue to hold political figures to account on what they say and do. I just want to be very careful not to inadvertently feed the Sarah Machine - a ravenous beast that devours all in its path.

krissthesexyatheist said...

Hey I just wanted to say keep up the great work. Soooo awesome.

Kriss

Suzanne said...

I appreciated your fact-based post about the scrubbing action. And your humor in dealing about the hubbub about it. I appreciate that you have the perspective of being out of the country and having media in England that, while it has its seamy side, also exhibits truly excellent reporting. Thank goodness for the Internet because I can access it too.

Obama London said...

Awww, thanks Kris and Suzanne.

Suzanne, the media here is definitely a very different kettle of fish that the US equivalents - I have my criticisms of it, for instance the full page naked women on page 3 take some getting used to. Actually, the newspapers generally are pretty terrible (don't get me started on the Daily Mail... although, do watch this - tres funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eBT6OSr1TI&feature=player_embedded).

But the TV news is much better, more informative, objective and reasoned than anything the US has to offer. I can't watch US TV news - everybody just shouts at each other and it's impossible to determine whether anyone has any kind of point.

Anonymous said...

I agree with your general point about not feeding the Palimania but I think your post didn't. And I am looking forward to further posts from you.

Obama London said...

Thanks anonymous. I've just posted a new piece taking a look at Obama's Facebook page - check it out. http://obamalondon.blogspot.com/2011/01/totally-straighforward-edits-on-barack.html