CTV news has a solid look at blogs that are following MP Gurmant Grewal’s taping saga.

A blog called Buckets of Grewal popped up a in May. It caused a few bloggers to wonder if it was what is called an astro-turfing blog.

Strong World defines the term.

The term is wordplay based on “grassroots” efforts, which are truly spontaneous undertakings, largely sustained by private persons (and not politicians, government, corporations, or public relations firms). “AstroTurf” refers to the bright green artificial grass used in some sports stadiams.

Astroturfing is carefully designed to appear as though it is the result of popular feeling, rather than a coordinated campaign, perhaps by spin doctors, or through a front organization.

It’s has caused a bit of swarm with political bloggers. CTV got hold of “Buckets’ to find out a bit more about him.

There are a couple of statements in the piece I find interesting. This from The Blogging Tories:

“It reads like a whole bunch of Liberal talking points,” he told CTV.ca, referring to the memos issued by parties to elected members on what should be said about a given issue.

I don’t see a bunch of Liberal talking points.

However, Steven MacKinnon, national director of the Liberal Party, told CTV.ca “it’s certainly not a Liberal Party of Canada ‘astroturfing’ operation,” adding he’d never seen the Buckets blog before.

I don’t know that a national director of any party would necessarily know if there was an astroturing operation going on.

I don’t agree with this generalization either.

Antonia Zerbisias, media critic and blogger for the Toronto Star, told CTV.ca that while U.S. blogs may do more “fact checking,” in most cases those bloggers are fronting for think tanks, often conservative in nature.

Let’s assume ‘Buckets” is who he says he is, an obsessive academic who has latched onto the tape story because that is his passion. I am a bit amused at liberal and conservative bloggers that find it hard to believe someone could crank out material without partisanship or that this blog just might not be astro-turfing.
Given how blogs come and go, I question whether this blog is a ‘Canadian’ first.
It’s caught attention fairly quickly, the work is original, and it’s a good read if for no other reason Buckets is clear about how he gets from point a to b. That can be rare when someone writes about something this obscure.

via: Neale News