The blogosphere has a rich seam of “media related” blogs, many of which engage in serious critical analysis of the contents of our leading newspapers.  We suspect that many of our lawyer readers are not familiar with this material – which often demonstrates better and sharper journalism than is to be found in publications being discussed.  In this post we will discuss some of the more active blogs which deal with the “mainstream media”.  We do not claim to be definitive or comprehensive – there are a lot of blogs which discuss the media and they come and go very quickly.  But we hope to introduce some of our readers to an area of the blogosphere which may have passed them by.

The Tabloid Watch blog tells us that it is “blogging about bad journalism” – it does, in a consistently entertaining fashion.  As an example, we can recommend this post on tabloid stories about non-existent risks of cancer.   Along similar lines is the Angry Mob blog – “we read the papers every day” – which provides sharp analysis of the English national press.

The Media Blog is, as it says, “a blog … about the media”.  A recent post points out that You Tube is five years old and currently has two billion views a day. Enemies of Reason – describes itself as “Pound shop pot shots at the media moral maze”.   There is the “Nadia Knows – a little bit of everything” – as she says, “Railing against poor journalism, creating my own in the process”, we draw attention to this recent post “Cheryl Cole 100% of this story is false” (as the footnote says, “this is not an actual statistic”).

Serious analysis of general media issues can be found on the blog written by Martin Moore, the director of the Media Standards Trust.  And there is the Greenslade blog in the Guardian – always entertaining and well informed.  The Regret the Error blog reports on media corrections, retractions, apologies, clarifications and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in the press.

There are two blogs which deal exclusively with the “Sun”.  The “Sun – Tabloid Lies” is devoted, in its own words to “Analysing and Exposing the many deceptions of the Sun newspaper”.   In a recent post it analyses a Sun article which suggests – contrary to the report which was being referred to – that “drinking alcohol makes you healthier”  The “News in Briefs” blog has more modest amibitions – it documents the daily comments of the Sun’s Page 3 girls – as it says:  “This site documents the comments of PETA, KELLY, AMII, DANNI, KEELEY, NIKKALA et al who never seem to age, but always have something to say“.

The “Daily Mail” has a large following on the blogs.  There is “Mail Watch” – inactive for the last month or so but perhaps only resting.   The Feminazery blog describes itself as “Blogging about the Daily Mail, feminism and feminist issues, while reclaiming the term “feminazi” in a tongue-in-cheek manner”. Buff the Banana with Paul Dacre – gives us “Daily Mail titillation without the other stuff”.  Just in case anyone is confused the blog tells us that it “is not written by Paul Dacre at all. It is a work of satire written by Stephen Newton“.  Kill or Cure isn’t really a blog – it is designed to “Help to make sense of the Daily Mail’s ongoing effort to classify every inanimate object into those that cause cancer and those that prevent it” – containing an index of subjects of Daily Mail articles about what causes or prevents cancer – there are quite a lot!

We are not aware of any good hard hitting blogs about the “Times” or the “Guardian”.  There is, however, the entertaining “Aaronvitch Watch” which covers the work of “Times” (and occasional Guardian”) columnist David Aaronvitch and some of his friends and associates.

And finally, we would mention Five Chinese Crackers – by the author of “Mail Watch” – which covers the press generally, with sections on the Mail, the Express, the Sun and “Political Correctness Gone Mad”.