Top Ten Blog Stories Of 2007: 10 through 6

It's end of the year and that means it's list time!

Here are what I considered the top ten stories in the Georgia political blogosphere. There might have been bigger stories but these are the ones which I believe either majorly impacted our community or demonstrated the community could have a major impact. So let's go...

10. Shelbinator Goes Carson Daly - It was a big year for Georgia video bloggers. SpaceyG and Shelby plied there trade from the front page of HuffPo to the South Carolina Presidential debate to the Florida debate's "Buckwheat got shot" moment. It all culminated in December with the Shelbinator being named MTV's sole citizen correspondent for the state of Georgia. All anxiously await to see if this gives him access to Hanna Montana tickets.

9. Bloggers Break The Fourth Wall - It all started with Peach Pundit's Erick Erickson running for Macon City Council. Suddenly bloggers everywhere were stepping away from the keyboards and entering the fray. Jasonpye.com contributor Josh Patterson narrowly lost election to the Hampton City Council. Savannah blogger Bull Moose ran for Savannah city council. Now of all things Tondee's Tavern owner Jon Flack is considering wading into strange politics of Forsyth County. And lest we forget, there is always the shadow councilman for the non-existent city of South Fulton.

8. U.S. Senate Race - It's still a little early for this one but everyone is watching the race for incumbent Sen. Saxby Chambliss seat. The PPers generally fall on the side of giggling over the not-so-subtle efforts of Dekalb CEO Vernon "Snuggles" Jones. Tondee's Tavern is an outpost for explorin' Josh Lanier. Meanwhile, Rand Knight, whose acolytes must constantly refresh Technorati, and former investigative reporter Dale Cardwell get little blog love at all. Stay tuned as this entry should be much higher next year.

7. Media Shuffle - It's hard being a word pimp. 2007 was harder than most for media in Georgia. The AJC reshuffled its deck simultaneously dumping about 300 years of combined institutional knowledge and crowing how they would rule the new media world. Podcamp Atlanta brought the first serious meeting between the old and new worlds. May brought a second meeting between old and new with some rather snarky results. June saw an insurgency into the Atlanta Press Club with the expected outcome. To the chagrin of all, the one person who seemed destined to bridge the old and new, Doug Monroe, left for happier trails. Then the axe fell at Creative Loafing. The circle was complete with a silly editorial by UGA journalism professor David Hazinski which led to quite a row between the bloggers and Athens Banner Herald reporter Blake Aued. Was progress made? An optimist would say yes if only incrementally. A pessimist would say, they still hate us and we still hate them.

6. Doraville Elections - New Year's Resolution - no more clever puns using lyrics from the ARS song. Late summer and late heat brought strange things to the small town of Doraville. The feuding city council suddenly and secretly fired police chief John King. The story may have ended in those wee hours of arcane local political voodoo if not for video recorded by contributors at Dora-Blog. Those meddling kids caught the outrageous affair on tape exposing the potential illegality of the act and the absolute political stupidity of certain council members. Every media station in Atlanta cribbed the tape, King was rehired and a couple of months later two of the three council members were thrown out of office. Not bad work for one little hyperlocal new media outlet.

Coming up, 5 through 1.