Don’t write off blogging

By Kezia Dugdale

When I was first picked up on the Daniel Hannan “video sensation” through Facebook and the blogosphere, it had around 15,000 hits. On the 25th of March it was the singlest most viewed clip of the day and today it stands at over two million hits.

Iain Dale was quick to point out that this was the death nail to the idea that the internet has no influence on politics. Few could have protected that this storm in a 2.0 tea cup would have been so quickly eclipsed by the McBride/LabourList/Red Rag affair.

The plates of old and new media have been gently rubbing for a few months now but the McBride affair has forced the two to collide, creating a new landscape for the Fourth estate.

Bloggers are now credible commentators and credible commentators are now bloggers. Newspaper sales are in decline but online readerships are up. Several newspapers are either going through serious redundancy programmes or downscaling their news services in place of more comment and opinion sections with limited success.

I talk to Scottish political journalists on a daily basis and I know a number of them are seriously worried about their own jobs and the future of the Scottish press.

In contrast, the popularity of political blogs is rising, with readers chosing a series of brands to follow in order to gain as broad or as narrow a range of political comment as they want.

I don’t believe for a second that the growth of blogging has contributed to the decline of print journalism but I do think it’s critical to its survival.

And that’s why I find Iain MacWhirter’s attack on the blogosphere so bizarre. To recap, he used his Herald column to denounce an ugly word for an ugly trade and was quickly set upon by bloggers of all political persuasions for his failure “to get it.”

Iain then replied last night with a second blog. The basic jist was “A ha!” (Alan Partridge style) “I’ve proven my point haven’t I! – You’re all a bunch of computer nerds…”

I like Iain MacWhirter’s work. I disagree with him probably on a 2:1 basis but he’s always got an interesting view or opinion to share. But that’s just it – he’s a political commentator who makes his living from his opinions. The pool of political commentators is getting bigger and more competitive. It’s therefore no wonder people like Iain MacWhirter get edgy when Iain Dale’s weekly readership surpasses the Sunday Herald’s sales figures.

In my mind, the evolution of political commentary from newspapers to the internet is the 21st century version of moving from a typewriter to a laptop. Iain MacWhirter is a metaphorical typewriter.

Blogging should be viewed as liberating for commentators and journalists, it’s a fast paced, extremely flexible tool allowing people to test to ideas, share good links, virals and promote debate. The public’s appetite for debate is simply no longer quenched by the letters page of a newspaper.

Jeff at SNP Tactical Voting is right to say “here we are again navel gazing” instead of examining the bigger issues in the newscycle. However, I’m going to exploit my right to write a little more because I’m speaking at a conference on the role of New Media in Politics on Friday and I need to explore a few more issues.

In my view, the reason the media is so obsessed with the Damian McBride affair is because they themselves are trying to define the role of new media in politics.

Blogs in relative terms to newspapers are free from regulation.

Individuals and hosting services are liable for what’s written but the knowledge of defamation laws is undoubtedly lower and that leads to bloggers publishing stories or views which might never make the pages of a newspaper for sheer fear of litigation.

I’ve had personal experience of this where I stupidly published something which a newspaper would never have touched without corroborating evidence. I was served with a writ and immediately withdrew the article, fingers truly and rightly burned.

I think this begs the question: What is the difference between Sleaze and Smear? Is it really as simple as fact and fiction?

No.

I think it was Mark Twain who said “Get your facts right first, and then you can distort them as much as you like.” Never is that more true than in the British Media where two newspapers from separate wings of our political sphere can write two completely different stories with the same set of facts.

In the the early 90s, John Major sued the New Statesman for suggesting he was having an affair with the Number 10 cook, expressing outrage at the attempts to smear his character. In great irony of course was that he was in flagrante with Edwina Currie.

In essence, David Cameron could sue a newspaper if they printed a story saying he took cocaine if the reality was that he smoked crack.

Semantics aside – this is murky, disgusting, low-brow, gutter politics which demeans debate and the health of our democracy but sadly, there’s a market for it.

But this should not be the niche of blogs. The beauty of the tools of new media, whether it’s Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, Yoosk, or blogs is the ability of people to organise, empower and affect change – or simply join a debate about the past, present and future of our country from the comfort of their armchair.

It’s a medium which is maturing and becoming increasingly mainstream. It’s hear to stay. Some politicians, advisers and journalists are just going to have try a little bit harder to “get it.”

Kezia Dugdale blogs about Scotland and Scottish politics at her website, Soapbox.