Okie Funk Nominated For State Blog Awards

Blog Receives Two Nominations

Okie Funk has been nominated for Best Overall Blog and Best Political Blog in the fourth annual Okie Blog Awards contest.

State bloggers nominate and vote on their favorite blogs in the contest, which is operated by Mike Hermes. Hermes publishes the popular Okiedoke blog. You can find a list and links to all the nominated blogs and directions on how to vote here. The voting is open for Oklahoma bloggers through Feb.7.

Okie Funk has won the Best Political Blog award the past two years. Blue Oklahoma, a community blog I help operate, has also been nominated for Best Overall Political Blog.

The list of nominees shows once again the vibrancy and diversity of the Oklahoma blogging community. I urge everyone, whether you’re voting or not, to take the time to click through the list.

The World Against Bates

Speaking of blogs and bloggers, Michael Bates, the author of the popular Batesline blog, was recently sued for libel over a commentary he wrote about the Tulsa World that was published in Urban Tulsa Weekly.

The World initially sued Urban Tulsa Weekly as well, but later dropped it from the suit when the publication printed a retraction. Here is a recent story about the suit published in The World. Here is its initial story, which includes a pdf of the lawsuit. The pdf includes Bates’ article. Here is information from Batesline about the suit. The lawsuit claims the commentary contained inaccurate information about the newspaper’s circulation.

Bates and I are at different places on the political spectrum, but I believe continuing the lawsuit against him at this point is frivolous. It might even backfire on The World.

Urban Tulsa Weekly has printed a correction. What else does The World want? Do the publisher, editors and reporters at The World no longer believe retracting and correcting published information is an acceptable method for a publication and its writers to set the record straight concerning the work of one of its reporters/contributors? In other words, do they believe The World itself should allow its own reporters/contributors to face damages in a libel lawsuit against them even though it corrects the story in question? Doesn’t this lawsuit actually encourage people to sue newspapers and their writers for libel? Doesn’t it give potential plaintiffs a very specific legal opening to sue writers at The World even if the newspaper corrects a story someone claims is libelous?

It’s highly unusual for a newspaper to sue for libel since publications are most often on the other side of such lawsuits. Why encourage people through example? Yet these are new times for newspapers, which are in a financial decline and compete with a myriad of new media outlets. Both The World and The Oklahoman have recently cut their workforce.