Over at PressThink, Jay Rosen and his students have launched a new section of the site known as Blue Plate Special, and one of their first features is a roundup of the top weblogging newspapers in the country, according to these criteria:
- ease-of-use and clear navigation
- currency
- quality of writing, thinking and linking
- voice
- comments and reader participation
- range and originality
- explain what blogging is on your blogs page
- show commitment
Happily, the Post managed to come in second in their list, thanks in large part to our own Joel Achenbach, who started the first of the Post’s weblogs.
The Post was found to have writers who spoke with real authority or displayed extraordinary talent— led by Joel Achenbach’s Achenblog, which drew the most praise of any newspaper blog the Specials saw. “Achenbach pulls off the lofty task of making his blog more than just an online column,” writes [Renee] Alfuso. “He covers other blogs, receives tons of comments, and doesn’t confine himself to one particular topic.” [Alexis] Krase is blunter. She likes his “his snarky and sarcastic writing tone.”
We also scored points for making it easy to navigate the weblog selection and the quantity of our comment posts. (During the recent comment unpleasantness, only one weblog, the main post.blog one, had its comments disabled; the remainder stayed active.)
Obviously I have a vested interest, but I think our weblog selection is reasonably diverse. I would like to see more participation from the other side of the river, especially from our public editor, but hey, the year is young.
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