The ‘Traffic’ Of Sensationalism

You’re all aware of my paralyzing fear of the ‘right-wing’ blogophere. In fact, I’m bemused by the polarization of political ideologies in North America full stop. Right-wing this, leftist that – neither of them actual representations of what is traditionally considered leftist or truly right-wing. Vladimir Lenin was a leftist and Augusto Pinochet was quintessentially right-wing, and the ideologies of both come nowhere close to being found in what is commonly referred to as ‘leftist’ or ‘right-wing’ by North American standards. Sure, there are some extremists out there, but the for the most part the idioms that are currently employed are inaccurate. In truth, North Americans are predominantly centrists that just happen to slip ever so slightly to either side.

Mind you, sensationalism sells, and nowhere will you find bigger oceans of sensationalized tripe than the ‘right-wing’ blogopshere. Traffic stats, attacks initiated to up traffic – it’s more the promotion of self than ideas, which speaks to the inability of many that employ such tactics to form substantial arguments. In truth, much of the ‘right-wing’ blogosphere is replete with authors that simply post a hyperlink or two and don’t actually provide any substantial voice with regards to subject matter. There are, of course, exceptions to the rule, but for the most part ‘right-wing’ blogs tend to be link aggregators and little more. They lay in wait for someone out there to link them and then their faithful lapdogs go to work.

In the past I have made the mistake of linking to various ‘right-wing’ blogs and in each instance was attacked soon after. The convolution provided by ignorance is a powerful tool. When it shows up in force attempting to counter it is as pointless as trying to reverse the tides.

Unlike many websites, we don’t display a stat counter. To our detriment we’re a bit too web savvy, employing a very comprehensive back-end system that displays in-depth statistics regarding the site that is only viewable by administrators. Unlike ‘StatCounter’ you have to pay for it, and unlike StatCounter it produces significantly more reliable statistics – even more so than Technorati rankings, Alexa rankings, and so forth. In the end, we’re not in the ‘hits’ business, we’re in the ‘content’ business, and the authors of this website focus on producing just that – actual content.

I recently came across a very well written piece by North Vancouver’s Raphael Alexander which I found refreshing and very accurate. It is not only topically interesting, but also provides and example of what occurs when a ‘right-wing’ blog is called out for what it is – or a ‘liberal’ blog for that matter.

In the end, with all of them hiring lawyers, threatening to sue one another, and acting like children, one wonders what the point is? Perhaps it’s so that they can lure their readers into supporting their ‘defense funds’ and thereby gain a few nanoseconds on the local news.