GV wins a BOB!

Someone needs to teach the Germans to write headlines. The lead for their story today on the 2005 weblog awards: “Best Weblog of 2005 Goes to Overweight Woman”. Uh, okay – perhaps you want to tell me something about the blog other than that author needs to eat less and exercise more?

As it turns out, the overweight woman in question is fictional – Mirta Bertotti, the mujer gorda behind “Más respeto, que soy tu madre”, is a character created by Argentine journalist Hernán Casciari, who’s using a weblog to tell a serialized, very funny story of Argentine life. Casciari won this year’s Deutsche Welle Best of the Blogs prize for Best Weblog. No word on whether or not he’s overweight.

And we – that is to say, Global Voices – won their prize for “Best Journalistic Blog in English”, a prize we could not be happier with. And while I could certainly lose some weight, most of our team is quite fit.

Our friends Manal and Alaa (both quite slim) were awarded Reporters Without Borders special award for blogs that promote freedom of expression. The photo of the two of them featured on the site is especially adorable.

Odd headline choices aside, I’m grateful that Best of the Blogs has done such a good job of featuring weblogs from around the entire world. It’s great to see a set of weblog awards where not every blog listed is one I’m already familiar with, and where new experiments in ways of using blogging, like “Más respeto” get the respect they deserve. Thanks for choosing us!