Thursday, September 21, 2006
Bloggers: ‘people with too much time on their hands’?
Here’s a thing. Wendy Austin speaking on Good Morning Ulster this morning whilst talking about golf (around 8.25): “...blogs ... I think the people who write these have little to do”. Priceless!
It is a fact that some bloggers (in the US and the UK) have little else to do but blog and write/lecture about blogging: primarily because it pays them to do so! Others are fully occupied elsewhere but bring keen expertise to bare on specific issues and consequently can have major effects on wider public debate. She could do worse than get a copy of Iain Dale’s A list of UK bloggers. Even better Wendy and RU colleagues, come to Dublin on 7th October, and join the conversation. We welcome sceptics, as much as the smug converts!
Wendy’s remark though (however light and off the cuff) does raise questions about 1) how useful blogs are, and/ 2) whether mainstream journalists are still stuck in old, increasingly outdated practices?
Mick Fealty @ 08:36 AM
“little to do”?
Cheers Wendy.
Too bloody much to do and too little time.
btw Mick, “while talking about golf” heh
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 09:20 AMI missed that little gem, even though I was listening to GMU this morning. I have to say, I really enjoy the programme and think its a good example of local radio in the morning.
One point however about GMU, they seem to be encouraging people to text in comments more and more these days, and its beginning to feel like every programme on RU wants to be like Talkback!
For one, I have loads to do, thanks Wendy, but find this a valuable and immediate resource. I was speaking to a ‘prominent’ person last week about Slugger who said that whenever a big story breaks the first reaction is to go to Slugger and find out whats ‘really’ happening.
Anyway, Wendy, I am hurt
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 09:55 AM“Wendy Austin” I wouldn’t listen to her after watching her do a u-turn in her clapped out Volvo near traffic lights on the Belmont Road in Belfast.If her attitude to the rules of the road is “I don’t give a fuck” my attitude to what she says is the same :-)
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 10:05 AMHelp! Who, or what, is Wendy Austin, please?
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 10:14 AMNow CS, that may (or may not) be genuinely funny. But you are playing the (wo)man. Please desist!
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 10:16 AMHit the link Rory!
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 10:17 AMIt seems a bit rich to accuse journalists of outdated practices when this website relies on mainstream journalism for ninety per cent of its material.
If it didn’t, and generated the news itself, I doubt very much that it would be that different from the mainstream media. Having a comments section is hardly unique nowadays and the online versions have been hamstrung by the appearance of libel suits against internet users.
The majority of blogs are written by people who have missed the boat in academic terms and therefore haven’t got a hope in hell of getting into mainstream journalism.
Every little pro and anti blog comment in the mainstream media is picked up here. Insecurity?Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 10:20 AMJSJS
Interestingly, the opposite also appears to happen. Mainstream media appears to watch the blogosphere with sharp and keen eyes, and often pick up stories and themes from Slugger.As to that old nonsense about bloggers being either failed academics or wannabe journalists, your argument has been trotted out here before and fully discredited.
If anyone appears to be getting nervous, or feeling a chill wind on their necks, its certainly the terrestrials.
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 10:29 AMNot making accusations James, simply raising questions. Did you miss the first part of the question and the references to the wider world of blogs beyond Slugger O’Toole?
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 10:36 AMMick,
can I mention [best not to CyberS - edited moderator]
Surely the way these people drive and park, displays the “real” person and their general attitude.
Now I’ve got to do a Google on “James St John Smythe” and find out more about the man who says “The majority of blogs are written by people who have missed the boat in academic terms”
Thank God it’s Smythe and not Smith ;-)Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 11:13 AM....a little Googling and I found this.
Anyone Googles for me, God help you ;-)Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 11:19 AMUm, I think you’ll find it’s quite a common alias since it’s one used by James Bond in a View to a Kill.
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 11:24 AMDo you really think people use their real names here CyberScribe?
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 11:29 AMCS, No you can’t! At least James is posting on subject!!!
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 11:29 AMAnd no my argument has not been fully discredited because I would imagine that if you asked the vast majority of blog writers whether they would give up their blog for a job in mainstream journalism, they would bite your hand off.
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 11:31 AMJames,
Returning to the subject, I’m not sure what point you are making about missing the boat to academia? Blogging is a participatory sport, the bar for entry is low, so the field is massive and the quality uneven. According to Technorati the numbers double every six months.
But the numbers also mean it has an extraordinary capacity to feed a long tail of specialist audiences. Thus the link to the NHS Doctor’s blog. There are others written by nurses, cops, firemen: people who do ‘ordinary’ jobs but give their insights into how their world works, or doesn’t.
Adds: I think your comment on the attractions of journalism for blogs may be a reflection your prefered spectrum of blog reading, and perhaps the current early level growth in the Irish blogosphere.
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 11:40 AMJames St John Smythe
“Do you really think people use their real names here CyberScribe?” Umm, I don’t know. I’ll think about that one;-)
“can I mention [best not to CyberS - edited moderator]
Thanks Mick!
Like the majority of bloggers “I’m all for free speech”;-)Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 12:08 PMI am of the opinion that blogging in particular and the internet in general is the modern day equivalent of the penny press and the Guthenberg Bible. It allows the ordinary proles to express their viewpoints and receive information in a way never before imagined.
As such this phenomena upsets the vested interests. In the same way that old style Tories and Catholic archbishops recoiled in horror from the idea of the masses being permitted to discuss issues among themselves free from the direction of the controlling elites so the modern day journos wish to waft away in disgust the bloggers such as they would a particularly maloderous fart.
You can see their point, they spent the best part of their lives struggling up the greasy pole of journalism, getting the right degress, kissing the arses of the right editors, slogging for years at the Births Marriages and Deaths column just for the right to be able to bore us all to death with their “unique” insights (actually utterly undiscernable from 97% of the rest of the stuff produced by their colleagues). Now horror of horrors every dog’s mooter with a keyboard and an internet connection can do it!
Well tough boys, the free and unrestricted right to published opinions is here to stay, sorry about your marvellous degree but we can all call bullshit when we see it and your years of sedulous slogging will count for naught if you stick up a photoshopped picture or recycle some falsehood that your colleagues have hawked around for years.
There is of course a huge need for mainstream journalism, but what they must in all modesty learn now is that in the words of the old cop show, they must “stick to the facts Ma’am, just the facts.”
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 02:35 PMWendy’s living in the past.
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 02:50 PMDavid Vance: “Wendy’s living in the past.”
Agreed. In fact, that’s what I said but I’ve been chopped.
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 02:53 PMI think many in the mainstream media are threatened by blogs because of the freedom. No longer is it possible for media outlets with agendas, either hidden or stated, to control the message.
James: The argument that blogs are dependent on traditional news outlets for most of their actual source materials looks reasonable on the surface; bloggers don’t have teams of field reporters and photographers on staff. However, many bloggers write about their own areas of expertise and have a better understanding of the field and better access to information than traditional reporters.
Also, blogs don’t need large teams of staff reporters because one blog may link to many other blogs; in this way, the blogosphere compiles more “facts on the ground” than the MSM. Consider the recent war in Lebanon. In several cases, individual bloggers throughout the area linked together giving a more complete picture of the conflict than possible with the MSM.
To imply that bloggers are somehow failed journalists indicates to me that you are not reading many blogs. From posts to reader comments, the blogosphere is a boisterous international town square, filled with experts and thinkers, philosophers and doers. It is stimulating, sophisticated and unfiltered in the most refreshing way. There is tremendous talent in the blogoshpere and it’s potential is only just now being tapped.
Long live freedom of speech.
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 03:15 PMDoes Wendy realise that one of her BBC NI colleagues is wasting his time writing a blog from Northern Ireland? Maybe she thinks Will Crawley has too much time on his hands????
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 03:17 PMMainstream journalism is the Old Testament. Blogging is the New Testament, and beyond.
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 06:39 PMSomeone who spends a couple of hours on the radio per day complains that bloggers have too much time on their hands? Hmm…
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 06:48 PM“I think the people who write these have little to do”
Wendy, Wendy, Wendy. Yer a sweet thing with good intentions but it’s only half right and all assbackwards. Get it right liebchen. What you meant to say was:
Bloggers are people with nothing to say writing for people with nothing to do.
See, now you’ve pissed everyone off with just two additional words.
TTFN, dear, got somthin’ to do.
Posted by on Sep 21, 2006 @ 09:51 PM
