Friends, readers, countrymen — today I am proud to present the first ever State of the Wisconsin Blogosphere address.

This year has presented dramatic changes for how the public receives its news. All political bloggers should be proud of what we have accomplished.

The public was hungry for a much spicier dish than the mainstream media has been serving up. In speaking to our political leaders we have discovered that many important stories were being buried or simply not written. For years now, the simple, the easy, the thought free stories we have all come to expect from our mainstream media have dominated the headlines and the newscasts. ‘If it bleeds it leads’ has been coupled with sports, weather and a peppering of health “news” all packaged for the public as what they need to know. In an unfortunate filtering of current events, several of todays “news” reporters turned their back on the legacy of legendary newsman like Edward R. Murrow.

Bubblegum journalists like Fox6’s Ted Perry and Peter Linton-Smith have regurgitated Republican press releases and talking points as news. While they failed to provide the public with news, we in the blogosphere succeeded. Where the public found deception in the mainstream media, they found truth in the blogosphere.

At the same time, our work allowed some journalists to step up and take chances. MSNBC’s Keith Olberman stepped forward to become the modern day vision of Edward R. Murrow. This may have never happened had bloggers not stepped forward to share their opinions and expertise in places they held knowledge.

Our work, as important as it is, has been met by our ideological foes with threats and in a few instances, even condescension.

We found a public hungry for something besides repackaged Republican press releases. They responded by talking to their friends, coworkers, acquaintances and families about stories that we wrote. Many of them became regular readers and subscribers to our blogs.

We also reshaped how the mainstream print media delivers news as subscriptions fell. In some cases they responded by wisely by giving some of their veteran columnists blog capabilities of their own. Whether they succeed or fail with their own blogs is something that is yet to be seen. Unfortunately their bread and butter, the local daily in Milwaukee, chose to reduce its coverage of local political news even further, defying business models for success but leaving a void that bloggers now have the opportunity to fill.

While we enjoyed many successes, we also experienced some losses. Blogger Cory Liebmann, a veteran private investigator, closed down Eye on Wisconsin, one of the most insightful blogs in Wisconsin. Political pundit and activist Bill Christofferson from The Xoff files pulled the plug on election day. Scott Stearns from Brewtown Politico went dark as did Bill Stephen’s blog, Sadie Says.

But while some of our friends moved on, others stepped forward to fill their shoes. Veteran reporter Gretchen Schuldt spun off from Watchdog Milwaukee to start Milwaukee Rising. Jim Plaisted opened the doors for Plaisted Writes and Ken Mobile from Mobile’s Take took to the keyboard. Cory Liebmann resurfaced as a writer for One Wisconsin Now.

Political leaders, past and present, also had an impact. State Representative Mark Pocan shared with us some of the challenges he faced in the legislature. Meanwhile, former Madison Mayor Paul Soglin of Waxing America brought us insight about Dane County politics. Oshkosh County Supervisor Jef Hall stepped forward with his two blogs, to provide some understanding of why things are they way they are in his capacity as an elected official. College students also stepped forward to lend their voices to the discourse.

Bloggers worked to keep politicians and political wannabes in check. We quickly exposed and debunked some of the bogus claims from politicos and even political action committees. After they and their candidates were exposed as liars, the public received insight which helped them to make the right decision in those races. In a couple of cases, bloggers were even threatened with lawsuits but the bullying didn’t work.

Challenges also presented themselves as blogs were attacked by a new form of spammer which seeks to add in links to commercial ventures without adding to the public discourse. Splogs, known for looking like blogs with the sole purpose of encouraging clicks for advertisers, thereby generating revenue for themselves, have started to be a confusing problem for bloggers. As we strive to differentiate ourselves from these commercial parasites of the blogosphere, technology is stepping forward to help screen out the overwhelming amount of links they’ve been sending us.

As we look forward to the coming year, we can be proud of our accomplishments. The state of the blogosphere is strong and the public is hungry for more. We must continue to scoop those with greater resources than us and rise to our abilities.

We end with the words of Edward R. Murrow — the man who inspired this blog and whose spirit lives on within many in the blogosphere. “Good Luck and Good Night”.