MediaVidea

Introducing the Blogitzers

The Pulitzer prizes for excellence in journalism were announced just a while ago. The Pulitzers are given out for a wide range of criterion – from public service reporting and investigative reporting to poetry and general non-fiction.

What options do we have in the blogosphere?
We have the Bloggies and Weblog awards among a host of others.

However, I think these Blog awards must evolve beyond giving prizes to individual blogs based on reader votes, across Google adsense-focused categories – best food blog, best gadget blog and so on.

If blogs are to challenge the supposed quality mission of MSM properties, we should have the Blogitzer, where we judge blogs on how they have helped bring change to the status quo, among other things.

We should get out of this Insider Mentality funk, where we are more concerned about links and comments than bringing in value.

If we had the Blogitzers up and running, we should have awarded the following:

- the blogger who helped bring Don Emus to book.
- the Newsvine user who brought the Virginia Tech shooting to front page.
- The blogger in India who brought attention to the alleged misdeeds at a supposed premier business school.
- Bloggers in Egypt who are standing up to the dual opposition of an autocratic government and muslim hardliners.
- Bloggers who converted their blogs into successful books.
- Blogger who helped bring a new music talent in public eye.

I am sure there can be many instances and we must award them.

Labels: blogging

posted by Pramit Singh @ 2:13 PM