Comments on: As bloggers we need to look at ourselves objectively

By: Administrator

Administrator — Mon, 29 May 2006 09:12:31 +0000

It is very hard to compare the two media, as one is so old and established and the other is only really developing.
I am as guilty of the navel gazing as anyone else, and I think it’s all part of the natural process of this mediums evolution, but that the same time it shouldn’t take over the conversation; I generally discuss the media and as a result end up on blogging an awful lot, but even then I find myself more inclined to talk about blogs than the other media, and I find discussion in strongest from that (partly because we’re all still trying to solidify our positions!)

By: Paul O Mahony

Paul O Mahony — Mon, 29 May 2006 00:20:02 +0000

Hi Adam,
very interesting. I just want to explore 2 points raised by John.
Firstly, he talks about “trust deficit” and I agree with him to a degree. Bloggers who are amateurs, don’t have the time and resources to diligently check everything and are in most cases not well trained in the art of writing/reporting.
However, against that, bloggers are not subject to political control in the way that Fox News appears to be for example. But for sure, there is a trust deficit.
I guess the second point, he is making is that the mainstream public is not clued into blogging and technology in general…. “the public, being by definition a fairly monolothic entity, will always seek a mainstream source”. I am just wondering about this. Its absolutely true of my generation, I know. But I am looking at the next generation, the massive amount of kids who are using social tools like Bebo, Myspace. These people will all be technically literate when they enter the workforce, at least to the extent that they understand blogging, linking etc. So I don’t think its too fanciful to conclude that blogging will reach mainstream consciousness eventually.

What impact will broadband have? This is anecdotal I know, but I was on holidays recently and was pretty taken aback by the amount of people I saw using video conferancing in internet cafes to chat with their friends and family. These were obviously people coming from countries where broadband is widespread and cheap…sigh! An awful lot of people are becoming comfortable with video and internet technology. Laws of evolution would suggest that a small percentage but significant number of people will become experts.
I guess newspapers have been around for several hundred years, blogging and the internet are really only in the gestating period by comparison. I guess that explains to some extent the amount of self conscious, navel gazing thats going one… like this post for example. People are just trying to work out whats happening, guess? It does get annoying though, I think I’m even a little bit annoyed with myself for writting this?:)

By: Administrator

Administrator — Sat, 13 May 2006 11:09:54 +0000

Many thanks Mark, and fair point on the letters page; the IT should certainly be applauded for printing letters like that, even ones critical of the newspaper and yes, the modern letters page doesn’t have to rely on the post. I also agree that many won’t use the internet instead either; that said I do think things like blogs (Again to Comment is free) offer a real time debate to those who want one, maybe it isn’t a replacement for the letters page, but it’s a good development all the same… I’m not sure if the Guardian have yet to use a comment made in a blog in their print letters page too…

By: mark

mark — Fri, 12 May 2006 19:05:20 +0000

Adam, good piece. I’m sure you’ll have no problem getting a print job once you’re out looking for a journalism position.

Have to disagree with you about papers dropping their letters pages. (Though I haven’t seen the Guardian’s Comment is Free – but most people won’t be going online as well as reading the hard copy)

Letters Pages are a great way of developing a story by provoking reactions from those concerned by certain news stories. And because of email – letters can be printed in the following day’s edition so they make a newspaper quite interactive and responsive for something published every 24hrs.

The Irish Times especially is quite good at stretching out stories and themes by doing this.

They have been quite brave recently in printing a batch of pro and anti Kevin Myers letters recently – some even saying the IT will not be as good a paper as it was with him. This independent voice wouldn’t be carried in the paper under any other format really…

Newspaper people say that the letters page is the first page most readers go to when they open a paper.

By: Administrator

Administrator — Fri, 12 May 2006 13:06:35 +0000

Well that is true, the print media has serious issues with the reporting of technology news etc. and blogs are more comfortable covering this topic, but that kind of goes with the issue of newsworthiness too; sure sometimes newspapers report tech issues as if they haven’t a clue, but most of the time they don’t cover it at all; that’s not because they don’t understand it, it’s because they don’t see it as interesting enough to gain readers… if it was a big money spinner you’d be sure to see people who write for SiliconRepublic getting jobs in print etc. As far as current affairs goes though, most discussion is regurgitated from the print media; as I said that’s not a bad thing, it just means they can never be an independent source.
I am happy to see bloggers interview politicians themselves though, like what’s going on at IrishElection.com; it’s a great way to cut out the middle man and perhaps source your own news.

By: Justin Mason

Justin Mason — Fri, 12 May 2006 12:53:34 +0000

‘I just don’t think blogs are an effective carrier of anything other than comment and debate’

Hmm, that seems a very broad generalisation. IMO it depends on the field; if you compare “blog journalism” to print journalism in some fields, the bloggers win out by a mile. The old media types fall down badly on anything computing- or science-related, for example.

I grant you that in other fields, however, the bloggers have a way to go.

By: Administrator

Administrator — Fri, 12 May 2006 11:32:30 +0000

@Jason; I think the difference is that all the developments you reference were adopted by the same small group of people who like to get news on a constant basis, that number is growing and will continue to grow but it will never, in my opinion, be bigger than the number of people who buy a newspaper once a day, watch the six:one news and that’s it; from personal experience I find there are a huge proportion of people who generally don’t consume the news at all, going on that basis news junkies like myself are a niche market. Even in a time where blogs are RSS feeds are used by everyone, they won’t all be used for news and info gathering, they’ll be used for social interaction
I wouldn’t be of the opinion that those who do consume news once or twice a day will do so through the same mediums as always; it’s bound to change, I just don’t think blogs are an effective carrier of anything other than comment and debate but that’s not a bad thing. I’d love to see a day where the Letters page of a Newspaper, which in my opinion is one of the most backward aspects of any newspaper, is dropped. In its place is a link to the newspapers website where people can leave comments after the article or even the respective journalist can give a detailed account of the work that went into the piece, and their views on it… The Guardian is leading the way with Comment Is Free, I hope Irish papers begin to take note.

By: Justin Mason

Justin Mason — Fri, 12 May 2006 10:55:34 +0000

On one point — Waters says: ‘I think you’ll find that only a small proportion of interested individuals will seek out news in this way, and I don’t see this changing much.’

By saying this, he assumes that the existing ways of reading news (and blogs) will not change. I’d beg to differ; one thing that has been a constant fixture in the blog world is that the ways of consuming this info have changed. Initially, one would visit the blogger’s website to read stories there; then RSS readers came along and one used that instead; now, we have aggregators (like the various “planet” systems), and in some fields, we have people who specialise in summarise “what’s going on in the [X] blogosphere”.

Next will probably be some form of automated summarisation and cherry-picking; this is already the case in the link-blog field with HotLinks: http://dev.upian.com/hotlinks/ .

Just because the current form of blogging is used and consumed by a small population of “early adopters”, doesn’t mean that it won’t get easier with new tools and systems as time goes on.

I mean, look at blogging itself; initially it required editing HTML, FTP, all that web-development trickiness. Nowadays you type into a textbox in your browser at blogspot.com.