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by
Mon Apr 17, 2006 at 05:48:45 PM EST
I have never liked the idea of "blogs" or the concept underlying it: "A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts - often a mixture of what is happening in a person's life and what is happening on the Web and in the world, a hybrid diary/guide/opinion/information source of uncertain quality. It covers everything from a teenager's record of daily loves, hates, music and angst to sites that specialise in a huge spectrum of interests and preoccupations and sometimes mixes the two.
It is a weird world. commentary :: :: :: buzz-it! It has "diaries" and "opinion" interspersed with analysis and information by people most of whom you don't know with qualifications, experiences and backgrounds that are equally unknown. It has groups that can operate at times like true communities or behave like high school cliques. It creates its own celebrities and defends them to the hilt and tears down the celebrities created outside its own sphere. It has great writing and it has bad writing, informed opinion and badly assembled thoughts. It is used to communicate ideas and to intelligently inform and to spread rumours and conspiracy theories. It encourages activism in the real world but is often self-absorbed. It demands respect but regards it as a sign of independence by offering none. It lives off the mainstream media and at the same time despises it - yet, it is enraptured if featured in it. It demands absolute freedom and even the freedom to offend and abuse and by doing so limits that of others. It calls-out everything and everyone but has strict rules and a hysterical response about being called out itself. It contains the very good and the very bad in a huge mess of both that has grown exponentially. You can regard its importance by being either a blogger enjoying, or obsessed by, its energy and its content or as someone outside valuing it for just its size as a communication resource. You can either engage in the mess as a blogger or you can use it as a member of congress uses it to disseminate information. Last week, Jotter tells me that on Daily Kos:
I was top of the mess. I was top of five days in which I saw the best and the worst of what blogging is about. I got the best from it in the form of 323 people recording support for the imprisoned Iraq war objector Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, the list of whom and the accompanying comments will go to a book-binder later this week before being sent to him in Colchester Prison. I saw the worst of it with two of the people on that same list, one of whom posted a "news comment" that completely missed the real import of a story in the Scotsman and the other that accused scientists of bias in their clinical studies whilst preferring the evidence of his own opinion. Then there came at the end of the week the events on Daily Kos and the whole celebrity issue. The first is to try and verify a story that appeared in only the rather obscure although excellent UK newspaper The Scotsman, which was picked up as being true by the Washington Post. This states that a Foreign Office contact says the UK will not provide troops for an invasion of Iran and, in somewhat vaguer terms, will not provide support to the USA for such an invasion. Confirmation of this can only come from the Downing Street and Foreign Office press offices. On Tuesday I shall try and contact them and get a statement out of them, as the traditional media does not appear to have done so. The second item in my diary is that I need to contact representatives of Malcolm Kendall-Smith to obtain an address to which to send the bound copy of DKos comments of support. I shall also want to try and set up an interview with either his lawyer or the "friend" that has been quoted elsewhere, as he is not able to give interviews himself. I shall choose and need to make these contacts in the name of the eMedia News Agency and, as a result, its output will not be in the name of Welshman but in that of the name of the agency. Welshman will cease to be known around the place as a frequent blogger but will become a news analyst and reporter for the electronic media. The news agency will undertake news analysis with a centre-left bias, will operate to the high standards of ePluribus Media, will follow the guidance provided by its advice to citizen journalists, will find and not simply re-iterate news and will try to develop editorial management. It will try and enlist others after selection to join its effort, where fact is more important than opinion and where getting out accurate information on major issues in the name of the agency is more important than any by-line that is awarded to the individual. If ever eventually accepted by the board of ePluribus Media, it will become known by a fuller title "ePluribus Media News Agency". So that's it. Welshman as a blogger is slowly going to disappear as a habitual resider of blogs. eMedia News Agency will start supplying all blogs wishing to syndicate its output. Hooray!
I am no longer interested in blogs, bloggers or blogging | 29 comments (29 topical, 0 hidden)
I am no longer interested in blogs, bloggers or blogging | 29 comments (29 topical, 0 hidden)
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