I had a conversation yesterday with Mike Madison about a number of things, and the weblogs of local qasi-celebrities came up. So I thought I’d take a look around.

There are plenty of people from newspapers and television who aren’t satisfied with their current high-visibility media outlets, but also want in on our little corner of the world of commentary. Luckily, most of them are very poor webloggers.

Good and bad, it’s time for a ROUNDUP!

I’ll go with newspaper people first. If you can’t take these, skip the TV people. As a rule I am skipping sports weblogs because I think they are stupid.

Post-Gazette:

Early Returns: The best of Pittsburgh’s MsM weblogs. While much of the rambling pointlessness linked below seems to have no purpose beyond “People read weblogs? I guess we should do that,” Early Returns is the election news that didn’t fit in the paper. It is well written, well sourced, and lucid.

Casino Journal: Another symptom of the Pennsylvanian obsession with solving our financial problems by exploiting addiction (a monopoly on booze didn’t quite do it), this allows Bill Toland to fulminate at length on nothing happening. If you think that the interminable machinations of the various players in the casino controversy are boring when written about in the newspaper, you will not beleive how mind-numbing it all is when space constraints are taken away.

My Homewood: If you want moment-by-moment updates on the progress of a dicount store possibly moving in on Frankstown Ave, this is your perfect resource.

Who needs multiple culture weblogs? Apparently the Post-Gazette does. Not only do they have four different music weblogs, but they also feel that you need more information than the newpaper regularly provides on television and stage. All this, and nothing about movies. Strange.

Also hosted on the Post-Gazette website is the weblog of Congressman Jason Altmire, who is not really a member of the mainstream media.

There are also seven other weblogs on subjects of so little interest to me that I really could not be bothered. You can use the P-G’s index of weblogs if you are one of those kinds of people who thinks that it is interesting to read about the Steelers deep in the off-season, the Penguins ever, or “parenting” treated as some sort of art, another nauseus concept brought to us by the baby boomers.

Tribune-Review:

The Trib has shown a lot more restraint than the P-G when it comes to giving a weblog to everyone and her brother. They have tried to show less restraint when it comes to content: they sell their two big names as “Big Mouth Bloggers.” That is these fellas:

Hot Seate: Describing his weblog Mike Seate writes: “So have a sit-down in the Hot Seate. If you can stand the heat.” How hot is this metaphorical lap ride? Well, Mike is so edgy that he doesn’t enjoy standing during the national anthem, but does enjoy being a dick to his colleagues. So, not very hot at all.

Heyl’s Half Acre: Pittsburgh’s columnist who looks most like a state cop comments on how our mayor fails to live in the 21st century by comparing him to Raquel Welch. Eric “Pot” Heyl did not mention receiving a response from Lukey “Kettle” Ravenstahl.

Plus, they have this guy:

Bishblog: Awful editorial caroonist Randy Bish shares his insights on being an awful editorial cartoonist in this imaginatively named weblog. Bish promises that this will be a great place to discuss the news of the day akin to an old-time general store. Comments are not allowed.

Now, television:

WTAE is the Post-Gazette of television weblogs. They seem to have given one to just about everyone who works there, or at least everyone with cute children.

Michelle Wright is to be commended for using a lot of photos and accepting no professional help in html. She writes about her children, cookies, and backwards necklaces.

Wendy Bell is much better at posting photos than Michelle, but writes about much the same stuff: having cute children, dressing up, and going to parties. It makes one wonder if WTAE’s entire female news staff was kidnapped from 1953.

Andrew Stockey has obviously been reading a lot of weblogs, and has learned well all the wrong lessons. His entries are rambling, pointless, and borderline ungrammatical.

Sally Wiggin turned me off at first by using the redundant phrase “tediously boring,” but stands head and shoulders above WTAE’s other webloggers. She even seems to think about what she is going to say before she starts writing.

Ashley DiParlo reads the internet so you don’t have to.

Don Schwenneker likes recipes, but who can be bothered to put them into some sort of book?

Given the incredible preoccupation with weather on local television, do we really need a weblog about weather, also? Apparently so.

Bob Mayo’s weblog is not hosted by WTAE, but apparently he works there. In keeping with being only peripherally connected with TV news, it is actually pretty good.

As far as I can tell WPXI and KDKA don’t have any weblogs, but I did find that WPXI is looking for a reporter with a college degree who “enterprises well.” I should apply for that: I have a college degree and I can make up meaningless phrases too.

Related posts:

1. Trying to make me look bad
2. Mike Seate hates to be honored
3. Pole-Dancing for Nielsens
4. Mike Doyle does good
5. Fake News and the City