Simon Palmer is a Twit
by Tommy
I think he’s scared for his job. I’ve always maintained that blogs will rise above and beyond the popularity of common print media. This guy has just realised it too.
There was uproar in Britain recently when details emerged of plans by one of prime minister Gordon Brown’s advisers to smear opposition politicians using a left-wing blog.
This is true. You have just uncovered a theoretical flaw in blogging. However, I think the problem is massively overhyped by people who dislike blogs. They like to think that the only news that’s correct is the one that comes from ‘official’ sources. Did you ever stop to consider what a degree in journalism gives you?
According to DCU’s website, a Masters in Journalism will provide a rounded understanding of journalism, as well as providing students with a core set of media practice skills. Hmm, sounds awfully technical. Journalism is a skill that requires maybe 80% experience/practise, 20% of it is learning the skills.
Some of the lazier blogs simply cover, word for word, stories from that day’s newspapers
I’d read maybe 300 individual blogs per week regularly, and have come into contact with maybe 1200 of them in my time. I have yet to find one that does that. Link?
[Newspapers], which are constrained by the time it takes to get their news out in hard-copy form…
Which is exactly why these big 60 page papers should be gone by now. We are entering the century of instant gratification. If I want something like news, I expect it now, not when the papers get it out.
Imagine a train crash. Now, say if a blogger lived beside that railway, saw the train and took pictures as it happened. Now, isn’t that better than the newspaper, which will tell me the aftermath. I care little for the aftermath. I care for what happened.
One of the major advantages of a blog is that news can be issued instantly
…and that’s a bad thing? The majority of blogs are well researched and educated news sources. It’s as if Simon has seen the shadow of an ant reflected on a wall by a torch. It looks massive, but in reality is very small indeed.
which is why the better blogs are making life difficult for newspapers
Remember when I said papers should be in a decline? Yeah, I said ‘should’ because they aren’t. They’re one of those recessionproof jobs, like teaching. Teachers will survive the 2009 recession, so will papers. They’ll die eventually, but not, unfortunately, because of this.
Damien Mulley asked the question of which Irish blogs were contacted for this article. I’d love to know too. Come on Simon, I mean, you’ve nothing to fear from saying, do ya?