bloggers versus newspapers

This week’s newspaper circulation figures as reported by allmediascotland.com look disastrous for the Scottish press – which in turn is disastrous for the state of Scottish democracy.

The rate of decline of the Sunday Herald and Scotland on Sunday in particular is alarming – but not that much of a surprise to those who buy, or have bought these papers. 

I badly want these titles to succeed but they just don’t offer value for money.  We can all complain about the content of newspapers (as I do too much) but the bottom line is that neither of these titles have enough content to complain about. The are far too thin for a Sunday newspaper. 

The Sunday Times by contrast has actually put on sales -   for no reason other than it is better value than its rivals. There’s just a lot more of it. Sadly it’s hard to argue that its comparative success has anything to do with its Scottish coverage – those who write for the paper are stuck in the mindset that Scotland is basically crap, that the SNP is an illegitimate government and that anyone who works for the public sector is a useless scrounger.

I guess that many people who buy the paper do so in spite of, rather than because of, its treatment of Scotland. 

This matters because despite the rise of blogs, large-scale daily newsgathering -  the watchdog function much derided by leftist media theorists – is fundamental to democracy.  That means having lots of reporters – something that even the best and biggest blogs are never going to be able to invest in.

This is why much of the recent debate about blogging and newspapers simply misses the point.  Bloggers are in competition with professional commentators and (apart from the occasional spectacular) not reporters. We need both. 

I have some sympathy with Kezia Dugdale’s post on this subject. In Andrew Marr’s book on UK journalism, he describes newspaper columnists as journalist aristocrats. In fact I have always been sceptical of general opinion writers who expect to write with authority about Iraq one day and school reform the next – they may be elegant but can’t possibly have the specialist knowledge required. 

This tradition is not common across the world – in Denmark for example newspapers opinion pages have usually been reserved for genuine specialists – most of whom are not professional journalists.

But Kezia’s post throws up, as she I think recognises, why bloggers are not the same as reporters. At one point, in a reference to David Cameron, she  reveals real misunderstanding of the defamation law (ironically supporting  her own earlier point about some, but not all, bloggers’  lack of knowledge of this area).

Another key difference is this: in a reply to Iain Dale, she guesses at the circulation of The Sunday Herald – something a reporter would never do.  Interestingly in the comments section, someone posts the details (although  now  out of date ) an example of those who say the internet lends itself to fact-checking and correction.

The real point is this: the threat to newspapers (particularly Scottish ones) does not come from bloggers. It comes from under-investment and cost-cutting – a trend  that may now require some form of public subsidy – although I am yet to be fully convinced of this -  in order to maintain the newsgathering role,  something that’s far more important than commentating  - whether on a blog or in print.

Not quite on the Jonathan Ross scale, but still…

I realise that a political blog isn’t the best place to complain about rudeness but I was taken aback by Andrew Neil’s handling of the discussion between Derek Draper and Guido Fawkes on the Daily Politics.

Iain Dale, rightly points out that the debate between the two bloggers was not the best showcase for political blogging. But, sadly, given their history there can have been few surprises that it degenerated into a petty slagging match.

Much worse, I thought was the sight of a Neil telling one of his guests, in this case Draper, to “shut up”.  There will be plenty of people of course who would have enjoyed that moment. But regardless of who the guest is, I think it is utterly unacceptable for a BBC interviewer to be so blatantly and aggressively rude.

Andrew Neil can be an effective interviewer, but his desire to be a player rather than a mere questioner is inappropriate. His views on Scottish nationalism for example should disqualify him immediately from a role that requires at least the pretence of impartiality.

Not that I’m obsessed by Tom Harris

Reflecting on his 15 minutes of fame caused by his blog posting on happiness Tom Harris MP has written today about the nature of blogging, in particular those who comment – often abusively and often anonymously -  on political blogs. Part of Tom’s argument is to question the idea that  “the general populace would prefer political debate to be more courteous and polite.”  But the problem with that thought is that it is hard to make any sort of a case for believing that those who comment on political blogs are in any way representative of the general populace. Although major UK blogs such as Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes, as well as online articles by mainstream newspapers, can attract comments in the hundreds, that kind of participation is of course still relatively tiny. For me the restricted nature of  online political debate is just another depressing sign that politics and political ideas are too often seen by most people as a closed conversation between people who inhabit a different world. It is that, rather than the problem of abusive comments (distasteful and childish although they may be), that is the bigger concern.

On a related issue newspapers and broadcasters with active comment sites should not allow online comments to influence to any great extent perceptions of what their general readers and audience are interested in. There’s a real danger that in the rush to embrace the idea that the old “producer -consumer” model of the media is dead that it’s taken as read that those who simply want to read or watch the news (still by far the greatest majority) have the same interests as those who want to comment.

 

 

 

What’s Tom Harris got against squirrels?

The Labour MP  and minister Tom Harris, has taken time out from his day job (slagging off the SNP) to broadcast to the nation about what he really meant in his blog posting about unhappiness.

The post and the subsequent story tells us a lot about a lot of things. Firstly modern-day political journalism – it’s not very good. Even with the Daily Mail/Tory spin Tom’s remarks are not that interesting or original, but they’ve propelled broadcasters in particular into a rather over-excited state.

Secondly, it shows the dangers of having ex-journalists as MPs. Tom’s blog is better-written than most and is clearly designed to attract attention – it was the phrase: “why is everyone so bloody miserable?” that has created most of the fuss.  There’s a lot of moaning about relentlessly on-message MPs and MSPs but a lively turn of phrase combined with a hint of self-indulgence, is disastrous for serious political parties.

And thirdly, this whole story says a lot about blogging itself – not just the dangers of the medium but that it is only really powerful when it is picked up by the mainstream media that many bloggers profess to hate.

But the oddest thing about all this is Tom Harris’s subsequent post which takes his Tory critics to task. He likens their reaction as being ”the political equivalent of chucking rocks at a squirrel – entertaining, but rather missing the point”.  Is it just me or is that not just a plain weird analogy – the idea of throwing rocks at a wild animal as a form of entertainment? 

Talking Points Memo

I’m doing some academic research into the comparative editorial standards of political blogs and traditional mainstream political reporting (it’s one of the reasons for starting this blog as I thought if I was going to write about blogging I should have a go myself).  As part of that research I’ve started to look at some major US blogs. The scale of these sites is impressive – particularly

Talking Points Memo, a liberal blog that looks like a professional operation. Indeed it employs what it calls “blogger-reporters”.  There’s nothing like it in the UK, even high-quality political sites such as Iain Dale and Conservative Home clearly don’t have anything like TPM’s resources.

At first glance, and it is only a first glance, the TPM site suggests that the gap between professional newspaper columnists and bloggers is not as wide as some think (in the UK at least – maybe there’s less of a distinction anyway in the US).  I’ve already argued on this blog that highly-regarded columnists employ techniques similar to those that bloggers are criticised for.