Journalism Research and Random Meanderings

Monday, January 03, 2005

Everybody's Looking for the Spaceman! Gary Bell Where Are You? 

I try as much as possible to avoid speaking in the first person and writing blog entries about this blog is usually a bit too narcissistic for me but there's a phenomenon that, to me, requires comment.

Like any conscientious and technically capable web site owner I track the traffic to and from this site. Site Meterprovides a free counter (scroll to the bottom to see it) and keeps stats.

One of the statistics it keeps is where you my readers came from. A lot of the times it can't tell but most of you come here after a search for a particular topic on Google, Yahoo or MSN.

The thing that's interesting to me is that most frequently people are looking for Gary Bell, AKA The Spaceman, host of A View from Space on Toronto's Mojo Radio AM 640 on Saturday night's at 9:00.

I was working nights a while ago and was a regular listener of the Spaceman's usually well-researched show. His knowledge of esoterica and religion are truly impressive especially during the call-in part of the show when he calls upon that knowledge in real time to expound on some point brought up by the caller or refute a misconception. I got interested in one story he was talking about that became this article.

The story turned out to be a well-crafted hoax. That's no fault of Bell's. A lot of people were sucked by veteran techno-journalist Declan McCullagh's April Fools' joke and it took some digging to fund the truth.

The point is that, since then, the majority of hits I get are a result of people looking for the Spaceman. I find it surprising but it's a well-deserved tribute to Bell who does a fine job covering things most media won't touch from his corner of our shared mediasphere.

It's nice to have the traffic. Now if I could only find a way to get people to comment or click on the ads. ===PB===