Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Awards and honors

Sometimes I get clocked over the head with the realization that, while I generally do OK with the writing part of blogging, I'm really pretty lousy at the whole blogging part -- you know, the linking and networking and community building and that sort of thing.

I was especially reminded of this recently when I realized that I had utterly neglected to acknowledge a real honor I was given recently: Tony G of milkriverblog decided to name Orcinus the winner of his annual Worthy Award.

I'l let Tony explain:
I began these awards out of poverty. Daily there are movements, organizations, efforts to which i want to donate in order to further their work. Unfortunately i remain rather poor and feel like my contributions are a pittance. So, in an effort to help folks get some real donations i have chosen to highlight one or two groups/individuals a year and ask my readers, whether in the holiday spirit, or just out of humanly gesture, to help the world become a better place by making a donation.

I call these the Worthy Awards because the recipients are doing worthy work, and are worthy of your attention. While i have no real limitations for myself on who may be designated, i have a special fondness for preservers and encouragers of Native American cultures and arts, and for folks working against bigotry and hatred, especially in the realms of culture, race and gender.

It's not a Koufax, but awards like this mean a lot to me, because they indicate the blog is succeeding at what I hope for it -- namely, it's providing useful information to the people and communities who are fighting against the hate and bigotry that continues to plague the nation. Thanks to honors like this, I don't need high rates of hits on my counter to know that the blog is doing its job.

But of course, it took me a couple of weeks to put up anything about it. Talk about a half-assed blogger. If it weren't for my writing, this blog would be a real wasteland.

That was driven home to me this week when the folks at the progressive Pacific Northwest Portal wrote and told me that they had decided to name their annual "best of the Northwest" awards after me. They said it was because they wanted to recognize both my achievements in blogging and my career as an author and journalist as well. I was very flattered, of course, but ...

Wait, I said. Most awards are named for dead people. I'm not dead yet, last I checked.

Besides, I don't know that I've really accomplished all that much. I mean, my blog these days is averaging less than 2,000 hits a day each week, which in today's blogosphere is a mere pittance.

No problem, they said. Blogs are so new it makes no sense to find a dead person to name them after. And I've accomplished plenty, they assured me.

We went round and round. After awhile it felt like I'd have to be a really ungrateful jerk to say no. So I said yes.

Thus, without further adieu, let me announce ...

The first annual David Neiwert Awards:
Best Monitoring of Right Wing Media
Michael Hood of BlatherWatch

Best Humor/Satire
General J.C. Christian of Jesus' General

Best In-State Political Coverage from Out of the State
Carla at Preemptive Karma and T.J. at Also Also

Best Interviews
Lynn Allen of Evergreen Politics

Best Series
Daniel Kirkdorffer of On the Road to 2008

Best Muckraking Award
David Goldstein of HorsesAss

Best News Digest
Carl Ballard of Washington State Political Report

Best Legislative Coverage
Olyscoop

Best Community Driven Blogs
BlueOregon, 43rd State Blues, and Washblog.

Most Valuable Local Coverage
Julie Fanselow of Red State Rebels and Jimmy McCabe of McCranium

I hope to be meeting a lot of these folks at this weekend's upcoming Pacific Northwest Bloggers Conference in Olympia. I just hope they don't start asking me questions about how to be a good blogger. As if I could tell them.

UPDATE: Edited to correct the wording on my hit rate.

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