Blog Snorkelling
By Duncan Barclay
17 March, 2006
"Without editorial control, (blogs) are unconstrained by sense, proportion or grammar... they are the preserve of those with time on their hands. Blogs have a few successes in harrying miscreant politicians or newspapers, but they are a vehicle for perpetuating myths as much as correcting them."
A short, succinct attack in today's Thunderer column in the Times, not so much on bloggers but on the wild claims made on their behalf.
The writer is having a go at Arianna Huffington, who has been singing the praises of the blogosphere in The Guardian this week.
"(Huffington's) latest is the notion that the internet — and specifically the type of online diary known as a weblog, or blog — has changed the way that news is gathered and reported. Whereas newspapers address readers impersonally, the blog “draws people in and includes them in the dialogue”", he says,
"This is largely nonsense. Similar claims for the transforming power of the internet were made when it was still known as the Information Superhighway. In practice, while the medium of delivery has changed, the content of newspapers remains the same."
"(Blogs) are not a new form of journalism, but new packaging for a venerable part of a newspaper. Even the best blogs are parasitic on what their practitioners contemptuously call the “mainstream media”. Without a story to comment on or an editorial to rubbish, they would have nothing to say.
"Most blogs have nothing to say even then."
It's always refreshing to get a little balance, even if it means pouring cold water on an exciting phenomenon - especially in a week which has seen The Guardian launch the UK's biggest ever blogging bonanza. But this is not just inter-newspaper rivalry: The Times' proprietor Rupert Murdoch, as we have reported elsewhere, has become one of the world's most vocal blogging advocates. Prick the blogging bubble, and you risk bursting your boss's $400 million investment in MySpace.
What's even more fun is that the author is no crusty old hack worried about his beer money drying up. He's Oliver Kamm, who just happens to be one of Britain's most respected bloggers.
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