November 23, 2005


Bloggers weakened without editorial oversight argues champion letter-writer

Compliments for newspaper editors are rare – at least when they’re not slapping each other on the backs at another awards ceremony – making it all the more noticeable when acclaim for their work appears.

But, almost hidden away at the bottom of The Guardian’s letters page, such recognition has come.

OK, using the word “compliment” may be generous, but the observation is certainly significant.

Those who regularly scan the correspondence columns of the London-based broadsheets will recognise the name of Keith Flett.

Mr Flett achieved notoriety in the 1990s for the quantity of his contributions to letters columns and as a champion of the beard.

His latest offering to The Guardian followed a long G2 feature about the “commentariat” - bloggers who, the paper suggested, are “challenging Britain’s old media pundits”.

A previous contributor had suggested that blogs were like letters to editors. Mr Flett disagreed.

“The latter,” he said, “have a very important control device which the former entirely lacks. Namely, an editor.”

While the immediate target of Mr Flett’s observation was letters, he opens up a wider question – that “blogs” and “online publications” are not the same.

Some, such as Perry de Havilland of Samizdata, are editors – and the site looks no more than a newspaper’s letters column, even though The Guardian did describe Mr de Havilland as “founder of arguably Britain’s best-read political blog”. Others are little different.

Nick Fealty’s Slugger O’Toole site may, as Oliver Burkeman in The Guardian claimed, “set the Northern Ireland news agenda”, but assumptions about existing knowledge levels do little for the newcomer.

Ironically, his feature appeared just days after freelance journalists in London had complained about The Guardian’s use of “blog culling” to fill its pages.

In another Guardian letter, Neil Knowles of London wrote: “I wish you would stop being so obsessed with blogs - no one in the real world takes any notice of them. Yet you go on about how important they are. They are not. They have the circulation of a small town newspaper and are about as relevant.”

Mr Knowles probably overstates the case – and he is more than a little unfair to small-town newspapers. Blogs do have some uses. They allow personal accounts of pain and trauma to reach the world – be it through the censorship of some political regimes, the chaos of war and conflict or the practical difficulties that follow earthquakes.

But blogs must be kept in perspective. Editors – be they of newspapers, magazines, radio or TV news bulletins or even online publications – exercise checks and balances. They should try to ensure that personal agendas are overt, not covert, and that readers are not misled.

Blogs are personal – as perspective or comment. That should be remembered too. “Publications” are usually collective not individual ventures, where the dynamics of people with different views may argue and debate in order to reach a view that is then presented to the world.

News is what happens. Yes, one person’s opinion, or the expression of it, may be significant and newsworthy, according to their background, experience and position. A statement from an important individual has its own relevance to the way everyone lives.

Blogging is still evolving. Some journalists are developing “showcase” websites to feature their work. Some even include “news”. Online publications are becoming more numerous, bringing the news and comment mix familiar from “older” media to the new.

Comment may be free, but what is it for? Articles such as this are, arguably, intended to provoke and stimulate, to register thoughts and observations. Readers of such pieces, be they in print or online, may be interested for a few moments, but then they nod and move on. Some, a few, may respond.

Life experience does, whether we like it or not, add authority to comment. Editors choose commentators and analysts whose perspectives can illuminate debates or help explain events. Being chosen by an editor adds something to each individual commentator’s opinions. That cannot be said of those who set themselves up as bloggers.

Similarly, letters to editors or contributions to mediated online message boards gain because of the selection – and rejection – process.

Is one better than the other? That question remains. The answer probably lies in the criteria by which they are judged.

I think I prefer the authority of the collective, editorial process, while recognising the power of the personal and keeping it in perspective.

Adam Christie

The new commentariat, Oliver Burkeman, The Guardian, 17 November 2005.

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