Friday 29 July 2011

How Nick Davies was monstered in Guardian poll


I was wondering how on earth the Guardian's own Nick Davies was so overwhelmingly beaten by Michael Acton Smith, creator of Moshi Monsters, in the MediaGuardian 101 poll (top) until I read the plea for votes on the Moshi Monsters site (bottom).

Maybe someone at the Guardian should investigate.

3 comments:

Michael Acton Smith said...

I'm confused.

What is there to investigate? Encouraging people to vote was part of the idea behind the poll wasn't it? The fact that a simple sentence on the Moshi blog led to so many votes shows the large influence the audience has, which is partially what the Guardian Power list set up to identify in the first place.

Moshi Monsters is little known outside households that don't have kids, but it's an extremely popular entertainment and media brand

The Moshi website and blog is visited by millions of children every month. The Moshi magazine is the highest circulation kids magazine in the country. Two Moshi books are in the amazon top 100 and the toys, trading cards, games and online subscriptions will collectively generate about £60m in gross sales this year. Nearly 1 in 2 kids aged 6-11 in the UK have adopted a Moshi Monster.

We take our responsibility looking after such a young audience very seriously and feel Moshi is an excellent environment for kids to safely learn about using the web within a walled garden, before they are ready to progress to Facebook or other sites. The site is fun to play but it also has 35 educational puzzle games and encourages a wide range of creative skills such as sharing artwork and writing stories.

Jon Slattery said...

Don't be.

It was just a joke based on the fact
that Nick Davies is an investigative journalist.

Congratulations on your poll victory.

Michael Acton Smith said...

Cheers Jon. I thought you were being serious and were about to kick off a NoTW style investigation into our voting practices. I haven't got time to be grilled in front of the Select Committee!