The new BNN “California’s Most Influential Political Blogs” rankings are out – and the big news is that the OC-based blogs have lost their grip on the top five.
The Orange Juice is still there, in the fifth slot. Red County/OC Blog has recaptured the top slot, and Liberal OC vaulted back to number two. But Flash Report and Orange Punch are no longer in the top five. And Total Buzz isn’t even in the top 20 this week.
The newcomers to the top 5 are the Fresno Bee Opinion Talk blog and the California Progress Report.
There are however a couple more OC based blogs in the top 20. John Seiler’s Blog is #16 and Newport Beach Voices is right behind Seiler at #17.
You won’t however find the other Red County sites from San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego in the BNN rankings. I guess those counties are not as red as Orange County is. When are they coming out with Red County Fresno and/or Bakersfield? There have to be a few more red counties out there in this big, blue state! But apparently none of them are anywhere near as popular as the former OC Blog.
Here are the top Orange Juice stories this week, using data collected by Google Analytics:
- The top story I have ever written is still on top – this is the one about what happened after former SAUSD Superintendent Al Mijares resigned. So far, since we started tracking our numbers with Google back in June of this year, this story has an amazing 2,853 page views – and an even more amazing 2,557 UNIQUE page views. Incredible.
- We struck gold with the next story – Metzler goes home empty handed but not before having staff run his errands. This one already has 438 page views!
- Santa Ana moves to stop delivery of handbills to unsuspecting residents. The ordinance died, but the story has 324 page views.
- The Mimi and Harry watch is over, but “What do Mimi and Harry think of Harald Martin?” ended up with 302 page views.
- The “Problem with Santa Ana” took the NICE committee to task, and it now has 256 page views.
- I was not happy when it happened, but “Pulido’s puppets vote for $24 billion train for the rich” now has 255 page views.
- Another story that won’t die! “Crazy Claudia strikes again” has 239 page views.
- It has not been a good year for Santa Ana residents. “Santa Ana goes after immigrants holding signs on sidewalks” has 236 page views.
- Our readers love to read about corruption at the SAUSD! “SAUSD Corruption explodes again!” now has 236 page views.
- And yet another story about the inept Santa Ana City Council. “Santa Ana focuses on signs while city crumbles in disrepair” now has 229 page views.
I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that your blog writes a lot about local issues instead of truly being a political blog. Also, no offense, but since you are not journalists, much of your collective writing comes out sounding like tmz.com material.
HAHAHA, there’s a bumper ticker!
“Read Orange Juice! – OC’s Political TMZ”
Anonymous 10:36 a.m.
In the past I have not responded to comments about blog ratings and rankings. However, as one of the bloggers on the Juice I will now respond to yours.
For starters I am not familiar with tmz.com
Second. When I was asked to consider joining the blog Art indicated that most of our coverage should be on local issues. I find it interesting that the new publisher of the OC Register made a similar comment about the future direction of this major newspaper. In fact a few weeks ago I made the same suggestion to the Team Leader of our local edition of the Register.
Third. “but since you are not journalists,” etc. Those are your remarks. Correct. While we are not journalists we have broken a few stories before the major newspapers or TV picked them up. While not being on any print media payroll, as unpaid volunteers we comment on stories that we feel warrant debate. While I have had over one hundred letters published in the OC Register or Saddleback Valley News over the past 15 years, there are many times when, due to space considerations and competition, my submission has not been accepted. At times other readers have a more concise comment than my submission which forces me to improve on my own text. With blogs everyone who follows the rules can send in a comment, with or without his or her name, and see it published immediately. That’s the difference between Letters to the Editor and blog posts. Based on the popularity of blogs,have you noticed that the major media has now created their own blogs?
And lastly your comment about coverage selection. When I began to post on this blog my reports were mostly about my opposition to the extension of Meausre M and my support for Prop 90. I was perceived as being a “Johnny one note” by one or more anonymous posters. Hopefully I have broadened the scope of my selected stories. Stay tuned. I will have a positive report on Santa Ana later this week. When the city, or a group within the city, is doing something with a positive outcome that too warrants acknowledgement. That’s all I plan to say at this time other than to say that I will be interviewing a key individual in Santa Ana this Wednesday. Yes, I guess you can put that future article in the “journalist” column on your spread sheet analsys of the Orange Juice.
Poster 1,
I have always tried to make my blog entertaining. Straight politics is boring. Look at Total Buzz. They are not even in the BNN Top Twenty right now.
What we do is a mix of news and commentary, and yes we try to have fun. I can only hope to have the kind of readership that tmz has.
As for journalists, even they are not above being shills. Look at what has happened to Wisckol. He is little more than a mouthpiece for Schroeder and Tran now. Very sad.
The truth is that reporters are not paid well. They have to work quite hard and the compensation bites. It is too bad.