Blogging Gets Them Going

I don't understand why the traditional media and some politicians regard blogging as a danger to them. Is it because many bloggers tell it like it is rather than skirting around issues so as not to offend bosses and political masters. A lot of ex-journalists are politicians. Witness this article in the Scottish Sunday Post by Margo MacDonald worrying about bloggers not being professional and a danger or threat to traditional journalism. That of course is the nature of business. Things change.

Well so be it, if the press only touts what the government of the day wants it to say, then eventually people will get fed up with it. Not only that, but the press can then also seem like the government of the day. Do as we say and do. Do not think for yourself. The trouble is, and it can be seen from the article, that press and politics are becoming more intertwined - Margo MacDonald admits that by accepting that Politicians need to work with newspapers to their point of view across and newspapers need the stories produced by politicians. So that to any blogger would suggest each is the pocket of the other. Hardly a healthy situation.

Yes there are blogs that are full of rumour, in some cases lies, and in some cases ill researched and reporting rumour as fact. However many blogs give us access to sensible thoughts that we would not otherwise be privy to, people who would never enter our social circle. I don't think bloggers in particular pretend to be the new journalists. A blog was a "weblog" for people to put down their own thoughts on any subject matter. If it is upsetting established newspapers and politicians then that is putting the freedom of thought on the road to censorship.

If journalism involves building up individuals such as Susan Boyle and then the very next week cutting them down with bilious stories just because she has had her hair coloured then I would rather read blogs than the bile published by some newspapers manned by professionally trained journalists.