I caught this snippet tonight of an Australian political/policy blogger, Gary Sauer-Thompson, who was not so taken with the substance of an interview that Sky News Australia did with me — but rather that Sky News was taking bloggers and blogging seriously.
I agree with the writer that this is a good thing.
I then scrolled down this blogger’s “blog roll” and institution links and saw that OzProspect is still under way under the leadership of Tim Watts, who years ago was a research associate at the New America Foundation.
Down under, I also regularly read The Interpreter, which is associated with the Australia-based, Asia Pacific-focused Lowy Institute for International Policy. Their blogger is world class.
Another great blog out of Sydney is Bruce Wolpe’s White House ’08 blog at the Sydney Morning Herald.
And almost lastly, the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, a very solid operation that has brought a diverse set of senior level of Australians and Americans together for years, provided the foundation for this exchange between Vice President Cheney and myself that made news on quite a number of blogs after being reported in the New York Times. An even better version that includes color from Bruce Wolpe and former Liberal Party Minister of Finance Peter Costello can be read in Barton Gellman’s new book, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency.
And to wrap this up about bloggers, media, and international politics, I have the privilege each Wednesday morning (Australia time) to chat with ABC 702 radio anchor Deborah Cameron in Sydney about American politics. She and her team are terrific and also take blogs seriously.
So I’m with Gary Sauer-Thompson who got me thinking about this, but from my own perspective — just as a lone operator far away from Australia — I think his great country is getting with the trend.
— Steve Clemons
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