'It's the thought that counts', The Guardian

Monday, March 06, 2006

Send to a friend
Opinionated weblogs give newspaper columnists a new opportunity to write at length about their passions, pursuits and political views. James Silver reports.

Not so long ago, blogging - the compilation of a personal weblog or online diary - was the babbling anorak's medium, viewed as little more tha quasi-journalistic doodling from those sidelined by the mainstrea media. But no longer. From the dieting diaries of Russell Grant to the politica jottings of commentators such as Melanie Phillips and Andrew Sullivan, an ever-growing band of media personalities are turning to blogging as a means o increasing their profile. What's more, there are no interfering editors and fe restrictions on space

Indeed, some say we are nearing the day when no self-respecting columnist can survive without a blog. According to British-born US pundit and serial-blogger Andrew Sullivan, the blog marks "a publishing revolution more profound than anything since the printing press".

While Caxton might balk at the hyperbole, there is little doubt that cyber-diaries are an attractive proposition for journalists. One of the latest recruits is the Times commentator David Aaronovitch, who launched his blog (http://timesonline.typepad.com/david_aaronovitch/) in December as part of the Times's blogging format. He argues that newspaper columnists face a choice. They can either stick their heads in the sand, pretend blogs are only read by "slightly mad men in middle age" and that eventually the idea will "probably go away". Or they can "get stuck in". Aaronovitch chose the latter for a number of reasons, the most persuasive being that a blog allows a columnist "to collect all his or her musings in one place" and "get things in to print no publication would ever commission".

What is more, he says, there is something very appealing about writing a blog. "I enjoy the sense of belonging to a community. For someone like me, who finds it easier to talk to people on the internet instead of face-to-face - I am not incredibly gregarious or sociable - it is a perfect medium. In other words, as ever, the medium suits the people who use it. And there will be people it doesn't suit. But if columnist-blogging develops properly, we will put our articles from various places on these sites, put our diaries and random thoughts there too, and construct a much more rounded personality."

Readers are treated to Aaronovitch's Times articles and thoughts on everything from Simon Hughes's sexuality and George Galloway's Big Brother showboating to news of a jogging injury that may yet prevent him from running the London marathon.

"If you want to be talked about in certain circles in South Africa, Australia or the US," he says, "I think it helps if you blog. Certainly newspapers like the Guardian and the Times are pretty keen these days on their writers blogging."

Guardian Unlimited first spotted the potential in July 2001, creating a blog that has since expanded into six categories, including politics and culture. The website is about to launch a far more ambitious project: Comment is Free (inspired by the famous CP Scott dictum) will be a rolling comment blog - a group blog along the lines of the Huffington Post - featuring contributions by Guardian and Observer columnists but also carrying a wide range of comment from other voices.

Edited by Georgina Henry, former deputy editor of the paper, the blog is seen as a space to continue the kind of debates constrained by space in print. "The ambition is to make it the place for the widest possible debate, with an eclectic range of writers to meet, dispute, clash and occasionally agree on the issues of the day," says Henry. "It's vital that the Guardian remains at the heart of debate, whether in print or on the web, and stays ahead of the game in using the available technology to promote our journalism."

Such forums offer distinct advantages for a newspaper. They create a sense of community for readers online. And they are an ideal medium for providing quick commentary on rapidly unfolding events. Even the BBC has got in on the act, with political editor Nick Robinson managing the high-wire act of saying something interesting while being politically neutral.

But the best blogs are, of course, anything but neutral. Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips launched her blog (www.melaniephillips.com) in October 2003. She churns out searing analysis on a number of themes, including what she sees as the West's appeasement of the Islamists, the "vilification" of Israel by the media, academia and the Church of England, as well as social and educational policy.

Phillips makes no bones about her main reason for blogging: unlike her commentary articles for the Mail, which usually take up a single page, her blog has no such restrictions. "[Blogging] is so seductive because it offers you literally an unlimited amount of space to say what you want," she explains, "and there's so much to say for someone like me."

Phillips says that although it began as a "tentative experiment", it has grown through word of mouth. "I found that quite quickly I was attracting readers from across the world and it's an amazing feeling to find that you suddenly have a readership that is global. It represents instant communication of quite complicated thoughts and the same thing coming back to you. No newspaper ever can match that."

Phillips does not make any money from her blog, but the Washington-based Sullivan does now turn a profit from his cyber-scribbling (www.andrewsullivan.com), which appears on a blog section of Time Magazine's site. In an article for Wired magazine, Sullivan - who also writes for the New Republic, the New York Times and the Sunday Times - wrote that "blogs can be as nuanced and well-sourced as traditional journalism, but they have the immediacy of talk radio".

He anticipated the role blogs would play for established writers and launched his own in 2001 to "a readership of a few hundred". Now he claims some 250,000 readers a month and his blog is required reading for US politics junkies. He added: "Eventually, you can envision a world in which most successful writers will use the medium as a form of self-declared independence." In other words, blogging is a way of cutting out editors and publishers.

Even C-list celebrities now like to blog. Astrologer Russell Grant has recently been chronicling his battle to shed the pounds for ITV's Celebrity Fit Club in his dieting diaries (http://tinyurl.com/p5tf6). He also rewards readers with his thoughts on the movie Brokeback Mountain (he enjoyed it) and the woes of fellow-contestant Anne Diamond, who was revealed by the tabloids earlier this month to have had her stomach stapled.

"I must admit to being very disappointed in [Anne's] incommunicado to me [sic]," writes Grant mysteriously. "I have stuck up for her as much as I can but despite three phone calls she hasn't rung me back as I do have questions for her." The blog does not reveal what exactly Grant wanted to ask Diamond, but it does give the reader the impression that he is one blogger who would have benefited from the services of a hawk-eyed editor.

(The Guardian, March 6th 2006)

Posted by James Silver - On Monday, March 06, 2006

Send to a friend

SITE MAP