Chris Cillizza, a writer for the Washington Post, published his "Best State-Based Political Blogs, 2011 edition" today.  NorthDecoder made the list -- as we did the last time he published his list -- but we aren't feeling a lot of feelings of pride about this year's "accolade."  

This year, NorthDecoder.com got lumped in with two websites run by corporate schills, parroting press releases and corporate spin. First, the Fargo Forum's website "Flickertails from THE HILL" made the list. I'm gonna come right out and say that websites published by reporters at big corporate newspapers shouldn't even qualify to be nominated. Having the Flickertails site on the list would be like putting the Minot Daily News on the list.  It's not a blog if it's run by a salaried newspaper reporter on her employer/newspaper's web platform. Sorry.

The other website that made "the cut" was the Say Anything Blog, which -- like the Plains Daily fake news website -- is owned by the big-oil-funded "Freedom Force Communications," a Scott Hennen enterprise.  They've somehow managed to get undeserved credibility (with people who don't know any better) because they affiliate with the Associated Press.  Again, either you're a blog, or you're a news -- or fake news -- website, but you can't be both.  Being a part of the Associated Press doesn't mean anything anymore, which is too bad.

But it's not just North Dakota's web scene that's been misread by Cillizza.  Cillizza picks only one blog for the state of Maine -- "Pine Tree Politics" -- and it is a website that was defunct for eight months while its proprietor worked for a U.S. Senator. It's only been up and running again for a couple weeks now, since its proprietor -- who still lives in D.C. -- quit his Hill job. Meanwhile, Dirigoblue, which is an actual Maine blog that people read that's been up and running for a long time, gets not even a mention.

BarefootAndProgressive gets no love in Kentucky while two right-wing blogs nobody reads made Cillizza's list. One of the blogs listed as the "best of" Montana written by government official staffers, from the state capitol, from government computers.  Sorry, but that's also not a blog. Like North Dakota's other "award winners," that's a propaganda tool.

The top "blog" listed in Florida is not a blog but a "news aggregator," and not even in blog format. Another Florida "blog" is a right wing newspaper's website, and not a blog.  Two of the Texas "bloggers" aren't bloggers.  One is the website of the the publisher of a Texas newspaper and the other is "The Texas Tribune," which also isn't a blog; it's a non-profit news organization staffed by salaried journalists.

If the vetting process wasn't so patently defective, I'd say it's nice to be able to say NorthDecoder.com has made every "The Fix" best-of list, but... I don't know if it's even worth it.

A guy's gotta have standards. It seems Cillizza doesn't.  

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