Bad company

Crikey, like Asian Correspondent, hosts multiple blogs. One of these, Pure Poison, evolved from The Blair/Bolt Watch Project, which had its roots in the earlier Bolt Watch. Like it predecessors, Pure Poison very closely monitors Herald Sun columnist and blogger Andrew Bolt. Bolt no doubt keeps an eye on what's being written about him but refuses to mention Pure Poison by name or link to the site - this infuriating the Pure Poisoners.

Pure Poison's most recent Bolt post - The company that you keep - castigates Bolt for linking to a website containing a post attacking one of Pure Poison's writers:

While I am not for a moment suggesting that Mr Bolt deliberately publicised the personally and professionally defamatory material that was on the site, I think it is regrettable that he didn’t take more care regarding the manner in which he linked to the site in question... If we want to raise the tone of discussion online then at some point people need to make a judgement about what they are comfortable directing their readers to.

Yes, bloggers must be very careful when linking. Take for example the Pure Poison blogroll which directs readers to the site of a former contributor currently displaying this (warning! not work safe) post at the top of the page. The company that you keep, indeed.

Update: In keeping with Pure Poison's tradition of un-noted disappearances the link to the former contributor has mysteriously vanished. Thus is history rewritten.