One thing which amazes me about the news coverage of the McBride/Draper/Watson smear story and the “MSM” reportage is that so many “media” people fail to understand the nature of the political blogosphere. They just don’t get it. This is particularly true of the “dead tree press” as Guido so fondly refers to it and most Labour politicians who I have come across. I once suggested to my local MP that she started a blog so she could better communicate with her electorate. This was after she complained that I was asking too many questions and therefore taking her away from her case work. Her reply: political blogging is pure self indulgence.
The reason it amazes me that so many people don’t “get” blogs is that they are not hard to understand. They are not some secret society which only meets on the first Tuesday after the full moon. To “get” blogs all you have to do is read them. If you don’t know who or what Guido is, look at his site. If you are not sure who ConHome caters for then type it into Google. If you think that Devil’s Kitchen is a Tory you obviously have never read a word he has written. It really is not rocket science. The very point about blogs is their accessibility. Anyone with an internet connection can read them. Anyone with a keyboard can write one. There are no barriers to entry, in economics parlance. It worries me that those who seek to run every aspect of our lives seem unable to grasp a relatively simple concept.
It relieves me greatly that some on the blue side do “get it”. Jeremy Hunt MP writes
I was positioned a few months ago as Derek Draper’s “opponent” in the online wars – the person supposedly behind the Conservative online strategy. I would never claim such status. However I do think what has happened shows that Labour’s online strategy is as bankrupt as their moral compass. Much of what happened was driven by an obsession in Downing Street that the right was “winning” the online war – mainly because of the success of Con Home, Iain Dale and Guido. But they fatally misunderstand 3 things about the right wing blogosphere:
1. It is fundamentally anti-establishment, and will probably be as much trouble for a future Conservative government as the current Labour one. Both left and right have their anti-establishment strands – the left usually based around class-hatred, the right around suspicion of the state. The proliferation of right wing bloggers relates as much to the latter as any support for the big C Conservatives.
2. It has a strong libertarian streak – in other words is driven by a coherent ideology that gives it a consistency and purpose totally lacking from Labour’s muck-raking tricks.
3. It does not take orders from anyone running the Conservative communications strategy. Most days you will find opinions and posts that make uncomfortable reading for Conservative frontbenchers – but that independence is precisely why it has a much larger and more loyal readership than the Labour blogs that Damian McBride was trying to direct behind the scenes.
Top down strategies fail as badly online as they do in every other area of Labour policy…
Hurrah! It shouldn’t be a surprise when a prospective cabinet minister understands something as relatively straightforward as the political blogs. I suppose it goes to show what a bunch of useless idiots we have become accustomed to on the red side of the House. More Hunts, fewer McBrides, please.
When I stood for the council – a long time ago in a far away place – I intended to be the first councillor in the area to write a regular blog. I was already a fan of the big blogs and I thought it was a shame that local people couldn’t have a similar focus for their discussions. As it turned out I didn’t get in and one of my colleagues who did win had the same idea – and it worked very well indeed. It is not some clever-clogs concept. It’s just about explaining who you are, what you are doing and why.
UPDATE: My local MP’s staunch ally gets it. Oh yes he does. Mr Field is certainly getting bang for his blogging buck. Hat Tip: Mr Sharpe.
This never ceases to amaze me, either. Somehow blogs seem to be viewed as something different to journalism. They’re clearly not – in fact I would argue that blogging is purer journalism, with a far more altruistic motive.
The argument that “political blogging is pure self indulgence” is a common one – and is also levied against Twitter. The truth is blogging is only self-indulgent if you’re self-indulgent about it. If you use blogs, or Twitter, to get involved in conversations and communicate with others, it ceases to be self-indulgent and begins to be constructive. A blog, for a person of importance, also provides a great single point of contact, and an easy way of getting your message across.
But, hey, leave the philistines to their backward ways. They’ll see the light eventually – everyone does.
I don’t “get” Twitter. I mean I understand it and everything it just doesn’t appeal to me at all.
But whatever follows Twitter we will all be using and wondering how we ever managed without it.
Did you ever buy that expensive phone you wanted?
BQ – the trend would suggest the next big thing will be people throwing smileys or even just zeroes and ones at each other. The number of characters just shrinks and shrinks. 011000010010. Yes I did get the phone, I will do a review at some stage…
“I don’t “get” Twitter.”
Nope, me neither. I don’t think we are necessarily missing something, though…
When I first read ” Getting It”, I thought you’d lit upon a topic I actually know something about. I was quite exited! But alas, you were not looking for advice on how to get more *attention* (leer,wink), so we’re right back to something I know nothing about. Cheers anyway!
LOL!
Tips on that topic much appreciated
Hi,
Super post, Need to mark it on Digg
Have a nice day
Aha , lost you for a bit , yes you have got that just right , the problem the left have is that there are relatigely few people who for no better reason than that they have something to say write it down.
Everyone is a would be ‘writer’ of actual employee of the Labour Party . I `ll pop you into my list …bad luck
Hello Newy. You didn’t “lose me” I got annoyed with you needling me and was rude instead of taking the high ground. Please accept my humblest apology.
Amazingly, eeven now, after the events of the past week, prats like Kevin Maguire and Tim Ireland still “don’t get it”.Ireland has even been trying to put the frighteners on Iain Dale by calling him up several dozen times and (in writing, clever) threatening to close down his Blog by bombarding it with hits.These moronic thugs have not, and will never, learn their lesson, any more than Brown has or will, as demonstrated by the apology that never was. Socialists will never understand the desire for freedom evinced by true bloggers, which is why they try and miserably fail to counter the phenpmenon
Whoops typo!”Phenomenon!
GT – I haven’t been keeping track of Mr Ireland’s blogwars lately but I do know he has a bee in his bonnet about the G20 stuff – he has been firing posts and comments off in all directions as if he was Gordon Brown or something. You are absolutely right – the control freaks just don’t understand why anyone would want a mind of their own given the utopian socialistic alternative.
This is why the left hates the “public service” blogs from doctors, coppers, etc. because they cannot imagine that under Labour their services do not work as beautifully as they should on paper. As was always the way with communism.
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