How is that not balanced?

OK, they both suck in varying degrees but both are comparatively suckless when placed alongside the Greens. A bit technical, but very balanced no?

The fact that, for example, the terms ‘Labor’ and ‘Liberal’ appear exactly as often as one another on OC does not say anything about the context that they’re used in, of course (and Landeryou’s ‘fair and balanced’ comment is clearly tongue-in-cheek, of course). Saying ‘Labor sucks’ and Liberals rule’ (or vice versa) ten times each would produce a 10:10 ratio, but it would hardly constitute balance.

Picking up on another couple of points in Landeryou’s post, though: I also don’t mean to imply (and I don’t think I do, in the post itself) that his form of coverage of political events is ‘tabloid’ or in any way less valid than that in LP or Troppo. I think it’s fair to say that the style and thematic focus across the three blogs is different, and our data indicate this fairly clearly - but which style is ‘better’ or more ‘valuable’ to political discussion in Australia is a matter for individual readers to decide for themselves.

Personally, I have no beef with Landeryou - but I would neither want to see all political blogs in Australia adopt his style, nor would I want them all to sound like LP, Troppo, or any other blog. Diversity is good.

Finally, Landeryou also points to my note on how present or absent the term ‘intervention’ was - again, there is no value judgment implied here. The difference between OC on the one side and LP/Troppo on the other is notable on this point - as it is for a number of other terms related to specific policy questions - but that these terms appear in one set of blogs and not another does not indicate ‘failure’ or ‘thoughtcrime’, as Landeryou puts it: simply a different style and focus of reporting and discussing political matters.

Anyway, hope he enjoyed the latte…;-)