{"id":691,"date":"2007-11-08T11:39:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-08T17:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=691"},"modified":"2007-11-08T11:39:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-08T17:39:00","slug":"journalism-celebrity-deathmatch-bloggers-vs-columnists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2007\/11\/journalism-celebrity-deathmatch-bloggers-vs-columnists\/","title":{"rendered":"Journalism Celebrity Deathmatch: Bloggers vs Columnists"},"content":{"rendered":"

P<\/span>artly inspired by Tom<\/a> Whitwell<\/a><\/span> (and once more cribbing from Martin Belam<\/span><\/a>), I had a look at the Google Reader<\/a> RSS<\/span><\/a> subscriber numbers for the blogs and columns that the Times<\/span> (to its credit) provides here<\/a>. The big caveat – it is only Google Reader<\/span>. So who wins?<\/p>\n

The results are impressive for the bloggers<\/a>. (Although they are not mentioned off the main page<\/a> – you have to hit a tab at Comment<\/a> to find them.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Here are the top ten (using rss.xml, atom.xml and index.rdf), and after that their position on the main blog page:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Comment Central<\/span> 238 (1)<\/li>\n
  2. A Don\u2019s Life<\/span> 197 (12)<\/li>\n
  3. Ruth Gledhill<\/span> 192 (11)<\/li>\n
  4. Charles Bremner<\/span> 170 (4)<\/li>\n
  5. Eco Worrier<\/span> 168 (10)<\/li>\n
  6. Technology<\/span> 138 (17)<\/li>\n
  7. Formula One blog<\/span> 137 (21)<\/li>\n
  8. Peter Stothard<\/span> 112 (14)<\/li>\n
  9. Asia Exile<\/span> 101 (16)<\/li>\n
  10. Money Central<\/span> 100 (7)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Danny Finkelstein<\/span>\u2019s Comment Central blog is the clear winner, but Mary Beard<\/span> and Ruth Gledhill<\/span> are both right behind.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a>
    Compare now, the     columnists<\/a>. Poor old Jeremy Clarkson<\/a> wouldn\u2019t even break into the blogging top ten.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Jeremy Clarkson<\/span> 84<\/li>\n
    2. Matthew Parris<\/span> 19<\/li>\n
    3. David Aaronovitch<\/span> 15<\/li>\n

      Anatole Kaletsky<\/span> 15<\/p>\n

    4. Andrew Sullivan<\/span> 12<\/li>\n
    5. Simon Barnes<\/span> 10<\/li>\n

      Simon Jenkins<\/span> 10
      Michael Portillo<\/span> 10<\/p>\n

    6. Rod Liddle<\/span> 9<\/li>\n

      Caitlin Moran<\/span> 9
      William Rees-Mogg<\/span> 9<\/ol>\n

      So should Times<\/span>\u2019 ed Robert Thomson<\/span><\/a>\u2019s final act in office be to start handing out the P45s<\/span><\/a> to columnists? Well, hold on there!<\/p>\n

      Finkelstein\u2019s blog<\/a> is run off Typepad<\/a>. His column<\/a> appears to run off the Times<\/span>\u2019 content management system. And you can\u2019t even find the letters RSS on the page.<\/p>\n

      So you would have to be very committed to reading his columns to be one of Danny\u2019s five subscribers. Hard to believe that his columns are less subscriber-worthy than his blog by a margin of 233.<\/p>\n

      But a hell of a lot of perserverance is required to sign up for one over the other…the curse of the content management system?<\/p>\n

      BTW If you want to know what kind of blogs really<\/span> gets Google Reader<\/span> subscriptions Jeff Jarvis<\/span> at BuzzMachine<\/a> hits 3,992 and – from a different place entirely – Little Green Footballs<\/a> 1,094.
      <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Partly inspired by Tom Whitwell (and once more cribbing from Martin Belam), I had a look at the Google Reader RSS subscriber numbers for the blogs and columns that the Times (to its credit) provides here. The big caveat – it is only Google Reader. So who wins? The results are impressive for the bloggers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journalism","tag-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}