Christian, one of our more loyal readers, wrote a comment about the obvious leftist orientation of the Vienna metroblog. I’d like to offer a few thoughts on that.
First, one of the nice things about being a blogger is that, unlike a regular journalist, you don’t have to aim for absolute objectivity. We can bring our own personal views into the texts we write, as long as we don’t try to sell them as facts, which, hopefully, we don’t.
Second, back when the Vienna Metroblog was launched, I had to find 10 people willing and able to write, and I had to do it fast, because I was afraid that otherwise, the whole project would have to be filed under “Could have been”. So naturally, I asked around in my circle of friends, which, unsurprisingly, consists mostly of people with left-from-center political views. And all the people who applied for the Metblog since then listed themselves as either unpolitical or leftist, except for that one guy who described his political views as “GNU”, but I won’t tell you who that was. :)
In short, neither is the Metroblog a leftist publication by design, nor do we keep out people with other political views out – it’s just that we never had any conservatives or moderates who wanted to write for us.
In addition, I’d be hard pressed to name even one right-wing, conservative or otherwise non-leftist Viennese blog right now, although I’m sure they exist. So, if you feel like metroblogging, but never applied for it because you thought this is a leftists-only club and your political views don’t match our own, please, now is your chance! Sign up today, and make this blog a more balanced place.