Me. Once. 1200 words for The Indy. Quid pro quo was that they would pimp the anthology (the one you are doing this year Justin). They didn’t pimp it and they didn’t pay me. Beware!

Then again, one of their other writers on blogs called Instapundit “the American left wing blogger”.

Whose writing off all anything? I said there are people who reject the MSM as biased but then believe whatever they read on blogs. It was an observation, is all.

>Then again, it’s not like newspaper columnists are PAID to think, analyse and form justifiable opinions, is it?

Now THAT is writing off something. It’s a sweeping generalisation and just the sort of comment that leads columnists to hit back – with generalisations about bloggers.

I’m not going to defend JSP and her porridge. And if you want to start a campaign against the likes of Rebecca Tyrell, who only ever writes about what her husband did/said/watched on telly, I’ll be first in the queue. But if bloggers slag off people in the MSM (which many do, endlessly), they shouldn’t be surprised if some of them respond in kind.

The problem is, as Dave shows, we can’t find any evidence of any bloggers writing the things she accuses, let alone any of the more read blogs. She seems to be the victim of a runour doing the rounds, and to have therefore decided it must be those nasty bloggers.

People who believe everything they read on blogs are as stupid as those who believe everything in the Sun or the Mail. We know such people exist, but that doesn’t mean you should write off all newspapers become some of the readers of some of the papers are a bit gullible. Same applies to blogs. Or Private Eye, for that matter.

Hardly unique to blogs, is it? As Walter Bagehot put it (in the National Review, July 1856, apparently), ‘The purchaser [of a newspaper] desires an article which he can appreciate at sight; which he can lay down and say, “An excellent article, very excellent; exactly my own sentiments”‘.

To be fair on Guido, I’m fairly convinced that he’s fully aware that most of his stuff is tabloid shite…

I think you’re being generous rather than fair, most of his stuff’s not even that interesting. His big scoop this week seems to be a New Labour press release, newsworthy because it had got a constituency’s name wrong.

Couple that with yet more ‘jokes’ about Mark Oaten (‘Let’s face it Oaten was up shit creek!!!’ and ‘As always Oaten wanted to get the dumping in first!!!’ brayed the sophisticates in the comments) and it makes you realise that pleasing that amount of people is easier than we thought. We’re trying too hard. Poo poo, cacka. Totty. See? I’ve probably put a couple of thousand on the visitor counter already.

Mandy:

If I told my editor: “I’ve nothing to say this week, so fill the space with something else” it wouldn’t go down so well.

So just fob the paying customer off with tired, uninspired claptrap, a la Street-Porter, yeah? Betrays a certain contempt for readers, I’d say. It could be construed as ‘any old shit will do’. Not an attitude you’d accept from many other walks of life, is it? Yasmin and Janet are rich, and apparently popular, enough to bugger off for a bit and come back when they’ve found something else to say.

I have noticed that a lot of people who see everything in the MSM as lies and propaganda are happy to believe stuff they read on a blog – the reason being that the blogger is saying something they want to hear.

Well that makes them stupid and unquestioning doesn’t it? The advantage of the comments sections of blogs is that you can engage in a proper dialogue. It allows them to directly challenge what’s been said. That’s something Alibhai-Brown can’t or won’t do. She’d rather look down her nose at the ‘Everyman’, clueless as to why they’re pissed off or questioning her credentials to do what she does. She’d needs to get over herself – people don’t want to unquestioningly digest her handed-down-from-on-high thoughts any more. And, I’m not unsympathetic to some of the flak she has but, as most bloggers learn very quickly, she should realise she’s safe and justified in ignoring the dickheads.

I wasn’t advocating usurping the commentariat with people who’ll do it for nothing. I don’t know of any blogger who’s been asked to write for a newspaper who’s doing it for free. That’s not what it’s about. Who in their right mind wants to do that?

All I’m saying is that there are better writers out there and if editors were truly interested in quality and not churning out facile crap just because Janet Street-Porter wrote it, the state of journalism would be a little bit better and those bloggers I listed would be getting paid instead of doing it for love.

Due to the huge barriers to entry, making it big in journalism is almost impossible these days – in some areas it’s bordering on a closed shop. Without contacts, a daddy in the business or a rich daddy who’ll pay your way through the unpaid internships where you can make those contact, it’s a big struggle. On the slim chance one or two good bloggers sneak in the back door I’m sure Yasmin and Janet won’t starve.

>I’m a big fan of ‘if you’ve nothing to say, shut up’

That’s ok if you’re doing it as a hobby. If I told my editor: “I’ve nothing to say this week, so fill the space with something else” it wouldn’t go down so well.

There are a lot of columnists in the nationals I don’t like. And I am massively jealous of their salaries. But I think the resentment comes from professionals not appreciating the world and his dog thinking they can do better for free. If I went to your boss and offered to do your job for a week for no pay, wouldn’t you feel miffed, or threatened?

At that, he’s been very successful – but for those of us who ARE vaguely keen on being the next Mencken, Orwell or whatever it is admittedly a tad annoying that the mainstream media powers that be can’t tell that it is possible to have different approaches to the same subject matter in a similar format.

“Blogs are shit” will continue to be the perennial cry for a while yet, as they genuinely can’t see that “books are shit” based on a quick skim through The Da Vinci Code would be an equally stupid conclusion. Then again, it’s not like newspaper columnists are PAID to think, analyse and form justifiable opinions, is it?

My blogging output is suffering recently; the heat, no inspiration and same shit/different day syndrome is getting to me.

Guardian Unlimited makes a profit (a reasonable one I’m told). I doubt Indy does (and half the content is available free from the Belfast Telegraph anyway). Pluss, their comment section seems to have gone downhill recently. Ah well.

Not enough vitriol, but otoh, it’s a good one to point the daft columnists at because it’s reasonably polite and says nasty things about Guido, who is a little up himself recently.

I did. I paid for all three articles mentioned above. Three quid in the toilet. I’m still boiling.

One of the reasons the Guardian’s online presence is so successful is surely because its content is free, bloggers link to it and drive traffic to the site making it attractive to advertisers.

Surely getting advertisers on board is a better model than hoping a few people will pay a pound a pop. The convoluted purchasing system must put most punters off for starters. The certainly haven’t cracked the micropayments-for-copy model.