Do you ever get the feeling when reading blogs that we talk past each other?

On Monday The Hill Times reporter Abbas Rana wrote up a nearly thousand word article on Bruce Sutherland. The article: “Meet the man behind Grit MP popular MPtv webcast”. has a sub header which reads: “Garth Turner says his webcast is downloaded by about 30,000 to 40,000 viewers every night.”

As I stated in my earlier post the article is behind a subscription wall so it is not accessible to me. MPtv has been talked about in the blogging world before. 6 months ago the Parliamentary Press Gallery threatened to throw Bruce Sutherland and Garth Turner out on their proverbial ears.

Another blogger who has Press Gallery permission to be in the Parliament buildings almost got himself thrown out on his ear also. Steven Taylor is not a Member of Parliament, he is a member of The Conservative Party who has received authorization from The Press Gallery to be on the Hill, conduct interviews, attend the HoC and blog.

Taylor and Turner are breaking ground.
They are not the first bloggers covering Canada’s governments, nor are they the first to make news in Canada for doing so.
A blogger in NB got himself turfed out of the legislature and there was an understandable outcry from citizens in all walks of life that don’t see a war between traditional media and blogging.
This is the internet. It is not going away, and accessibility and freedom for independent journalists and bloggers is a plus for every voter. As voters we get understandably prickly when we don’t see fair access. Groups such as The Electronic Freedom Foundation exist to make sure uneasy politicians, obsessive bureaucrats and wealthy lobby groups do not restrict access to information. They advocate, alert, monitor, file briefs, research and deal with the courts.

Which brings me to this week’s The Hill Times story and some fallout.
MPtv is unique. One day you can see an interview from a back bencher from any party, the next you can watch an interview with a stone mason working to preserve crumbling buildings on Parliament Hill. Some days MPtv does MOS - Man on the Street interviews where people like you and I are stopped and asked for our opinion. MPtv is well produced.
If you haven’t had an opportunity, check it out.
You get to decide whether or not you like it.

On Tuesday, Steven Taylor wrote up a post about the number of viewers for MPtv; “Is Garth Turner stretching the truth? In it he tabulated Google video stats for MPtv off Google, and bounced off the sub-header of the The Hill Times story. He meticulously tabled the numbers he collected and concluded:

The numbers for the top 10 videos aren’t bad, but consider that Garth boasts 30,000-40,000 views of MPtv per night. The numbers above represent the number of views since the date included in the title. It is closer to the truth to say that Garth’s videos have been viewed 30,000 times (in total) rather than per day.

It seems that Garth’s typical video gets about 50-200 hits (total) while his top video received 7,264 views since October 18th, 2006. A far cry from 30,000 to 40,000 video views every night that Garth claims.

Opps.
Steven Taylor’s post was picked up by National Newswatch, a few bloggers that would be happy to see Mr. Turner retire at the North Pole, Scott Tribe at Progressive Bloggers, and myself.

Crunching the numbers deflected from the work that MPtv’s Bruce Sutherland does on one hand, but on the other, it highlights it. I asked readers how stats are collected for Google videos.

I think that is a fair question. I’ve gotten two points of view, and I am still not able to ascertain ‘how’ video stats work. Steven Taylor stopped by BDBO and answered the question, and then put an update at his blog explaining how he found the numbers.

By taking The Hill Times sub header “Garth Turner says his webcast is downloaded by about 30,000 to 40,000 viewers every night and working numbers, Mr. Taylor was being who he is, a member of The Conservative Party of Canada questioning a Liberal MP’s statement.

Right then. Did Mr. Turner say what he said to the reporter at The Hill Times? What are accurate numbers? And should numbers matter? It looked for all intensive purposes that Steven Taylor’s conclusion that Mr. Turner ‘is’ stretching the truth might be true.

I wrote the reporter at The Hill Times and asked the following:

Did you or Hill Times staff check MPtv traffic numbers independently of Mr. Turner’s statement?

If or when The Hill Times gets back to me, I’ll post their response.

I wrote the website administrator of The Turner report who is prominently listed on the website and asked:

“Would you be able and willing to provide accurate numbers?
Daily/weekly/monthly hits, uniques and pageviews for the vidblog and text blog?”

He got back to me quickly and courteously.

I left a comment for Steven Taylor, emailed and asked:

Did you contact Mr. Turner or his staff to ask any questions or fact check/verify the web stats and your research?

Steven Taylor responded quickly and courteously.

BD, no… Google is the source of the statistics and is accessible to anyone that clicks on the links in my post — Stephen

I knew Mr. Turner’s website company were not authorized to to give out information about a client site without permission.

I’d left a comment at the Turner Report stating I was contacting the webmaster about the stats. Once William Stratas got back to me I wrote the constituency office with the same question and cc’d: Mr. Stratas. The email was addressed To whom it may concern.
I asked my original question and snuck in another one.

“Would you be able and willing to provide accurate numbers? Daily/weekly/monthly hits, uniques and pageviews for the vidblog and text blog?”

If the post: Mr. Credibility is the official response, please advise.

While I was attempting to figure out how Google videoblog stats work, and asking a webmaster, a reporter, a blogger and a constituency office questions, MP Garth Turner responded to Steven Taylor with a post at his blog titled Mr. Credibility.
While both Taylor and Turner are vocal in their partisanship, and there is no love lost between them, the angle I was attempting to understand seemed to be a bit lost.

I am well aware politicians take information they have and repeat it. That is why I think Steven Taylor did us a service breaking down the numbers. It is also why I don’t believe his numbers are complete. Can Google videos be embedded in emails and sent out in constituency newsletters? Can Google miss hits off an embedded video on a webpage? Would it be prudent for any politician that decides to go online using an open platform like a blog, be wise to use an accessible hit counter? I don’t know. I do know with 308 MP’s in Ottawa, only one has chosen to use an open platform like blogging.

Since I’d already asked the question and received a response, I wasn’t expecting the consituency office to respond. As I went to bed I realized partisanship and agendas aside there is are important things statistics can’t speak to.
When I got up today, I had a response from Mr. Turner.

Here is my official response:

MPTv is an attempt to open up Parliament as never before, and provide MPs from all parties an unfiltered chance to tell voters why they’re there and what they’re doing. Its only criteria of success or failure, therefore, is if MPs participate, or ignore it.

Since launching this, I have never asked my web team for audience numbers, since they are irrelevant. The only stat I ever received, unsolicited, was a number in excess of 70,000 for downloads of an MPtv segment done when I left the Conservative caucus.

When asked recently by a reporter for an audience number, I gave a flip and unresearched number based on that stat, believing the current videos might receive a quarter of that number. A Conservative critic challenged this, which caused me to have some audience research done. I found two things: My guesstimate was too high, and the Conservative’s numbers were too low.

One fact remains however: I still don’t care. Those who do are the ones we should be worrying about.

Hon Garth Turner PC, MP Halton
Riding (905) xxx-xxxx| Cell (905) xxx-xxxx
86 Main Street, Milton Ont
House of Commons, Ottawa Ont K1A 0A6

I’ll end with this.
This is not a question of right or wrong.
It isn’t black and white, it’s about how people approach communication and each other.
This was what Scott Tribe calls ‘gotcha’ blogging.
Steven Taylor complied stats the way he understood them.
Garth Turner doesn’t pay much attention to his website stats.
Taylor could have approached the Halton MP’s webmaster or the constituency office. He didn’t.
Garth Turner can post accurate stats any time he wants. He hasn’t.
The Hill Times could have fact checked or asked a clarifying question. They didn’t.

Blogging isn’t going away. Steven Taylor knows this. Garth Turner knows this. No matter what their skills, partisanship, aspirations or goals, both are working to promote digital democracy.
Both are working to further participatory politics.
It’s messy, but someone has got to do it.:^)

Intergovworld - High Touch or High Tech