Policywonk's MN rep at 'Commentariat vs Bloggertariat: who's winning?'

[GeraldineMumsnet]

It's on Monday evening and the panel line-up is: David Aaronovitch (Times commentator), Martin Bright (New Deal of the Mind founder, and blogger), Iain Dale (political blogger and publisher), Mick Fealty (political blogger) and Anne Spackman (Times' comment editor).

Any points you'd like PW to make on your behalf?

v briefly (god, I'm posting duirng a family lunch)

Totally agree 100x - but that has always been the case. People read tabloids, for example, which bear little relationship to the kind of News that you refer to. The Daily Mail presents the news through an almost opaque prism of prejudice.

The value - and also the failing - of blogs is that they are unfiltered. They have jolted teh MSM out of complacency, and those which come from areas where it is impossible for the MSM to get real access are invaluable. But they cannot replace 'The Press', for the same reason that Martin Bell can't replace 'Political Parties'. They have no real power because they individualized and not collective. There can be one-off successes, but no consistency.

I think there will be a period of adjustment; but I think that ultimately, that part of the public which values broadsheet reporting will continue to be prepared to pay for it, online. Perhaps that percentage will shrink, but it will eventually stabilize.

Yes, the 'news' part of news will be increasingly difficult to monetize, but it is the interpretation and contextualization of the news for which we pay.

The parts of a newspaper's business which can or must be given away free, as a kind of loss-leader, will be, and it will be only these elements - the interpretation and explication - which will be in genuine competition with individual bloggers. Exceptionally few of whose number are or will be financially viable as businesses. Only the amazingly-placed (and therefore anonymous eg the Iranian insider) or the outrageously-entertaining can really offer proper competition to the MSM

Sorry if that doesn't make sense, I'm trying to eat spag and maetballs at same time. And 'talk' to kids/dp.

Could I just ask/debrief about that other thread- since you're all here, and hello growingup ...

There's obviously some form between ODG and UQD, which I hadn't realised. And there was a bit of gang warfare going on, stirred up by strong feelings and hurt.

I kind of bumbled in, in my intellectual 'ooh here's an interesting thing to talk about way, let's try and sound like I know what questions to ask' cord jacket with leather elbow patches way. And then ODG was getting mobbed, and Swedes piled in in defence, and clearly has form herself with Rhubarb, and UQD seemed brusque but not as bad/offensive as people were implying, and oh my, it was my first religion thread. And I was very sad last night. It was another initiation into MN.

I - not being from polite society - was not brought up with the 'you don't discuss religion or politics' edict. Quite the opposite. So. How to discuss these things respectfully? Or just don't?

Lupus - I have no form with Rhubarb at all. But I have often voiced my opinion that Men take up too much elbow room on Mumsnet. And Olympede has no form with UQD. But UQD has form for being generally intolerant about religion.

sorry, wrong choice of words. And apologies for making assumptions. It seemed like something that had a familiar structure/tone.

Some of us have been kicking around on here for years. Some have built up resentments, some haven't.

I can't find the thread you are discussing. Has it been deleted?

OBM, as liberal as I am - though getting a bt neo-liberal more and more - I actually can see the benefit of the tabloids and their feircely nationalistic slant on things which is I think a vital correction to all the self-hating, anti-western stuff that goes on.

this one MT

It started badly, got better, descended into bluntness, grumpiness and misunderstanding all round in the middle, picked up again, Lucia waded in, some of us decided backing off into stupid humour was the best way out. Olympe deregged.

sorry, had to go off myself as DS was emtying a bottle of shampoo down the plug hole!

But my next point is that these dichotomies (false or not) are vital for debate, vital for progress. It's when people try to shut down debate that we should worry - always!

I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it - who actually beleives this now? How much has it (and free speech itself) been eroded by political correctness, arguments from which more and more resemble 1984?

I do not think saying anything shuld be a crime. How do you argue against and falsify malign ideas if they are not allowed to be expressed and legitimatley tackled? Those ideas won't go away.

Think it's OK to ask specific questions such as, 'why do you believe such and such' 'what does your belief/religion think about xxx' but not OK to say, 'clearly xxx is garbage. Why do you believe it when it's been proven etc....'

Free speech is not an absolute right as quality does come into it.

Of course it's okay. The first part isn't even a question, it's an opinion. It's not a fact. It can be challenged.

Yes that made perfect sense OBM, and was very helpful.

I suppose the difference with the MSM now is that their news is filtered by political prejudice, and generally you know what their prejudice or slant might be, and choose accordingly. Similarly if you want your own prejudices challenged, you chose a different paper.

Your helpful post has made me wonder if what I'm thinking about is wherein lies the difference between opinion and politically prejudiced news?

I wonder too whether it is that distinction which is becoming blurred, rather than the truth / opinion news of my first post?

Your point about collective authority is v. good and I think you are right. I do hope PW reports back, I'm interested to hear what is said on this panel now.

Lupus - I wouldn't worry. Nothing you said on that thread would have offended anybody. There are a few Dawkins proselytisers posters who always come up on these threads and try to convince everyone that religious belief is no more worthy of serious consideration than a belief in fairies etc. Another set of posters (made up in roughly equal parts of atheists, agnostics and believers) invariably comes on to say things like "don't you think that's a bit reductive" or "that's bollocks" or "I find that very offensive actually" and it all goes downhill from there. Think this one was unusually unpleasant though, probably in part because of some quite dodgy comments about Jewish practices early on in the thread.

There are a lot of interesting discussions to be had about the role of religion in society, whether particular religious privileges should be tolerated, and how we should accommodate a range of religious beliefs and practices. On Mumsnet these seem to me to be hampered rather more by those who keep repeating "we shouldn't accommodate them at all because it's all rubbish don't you see" than by those who take offence at any criticism of their faith.

(Sorry this has absolutely nothing to do with bloggers and commentators - hijack over.)

It would be highly unusual to find the media was not a battlegroud for political ideologies. It is the main disseminator of all our information on the world.

I am all for freedom of the press, but think there should be a discussion about self regulation. The media is too important to leave completely self regulated. As the expensed scandal has shown, the system is only as uncorruptable as the people. And no political media pundit is elected, even though we get our political info via their interpretation.

Disseminator, yes, but the media is being effectively HM Opposition.

WEell if that is so we'd be better off scrutinising the journos just as much as the politicians.

Who's for looking into their expenses and seeing what we find? Many mistresses homes and a shed load of coke is my first guess.

And that's not including the lap dancing gym recipts!

I'm not sure that's the most pressing problem facing the demos at the moment, MT.

what or who are 'the demos'

"in general spirit of meeting complete strangers, swapping cards and then not phoning them" - that is exactly what I do! Thought I was the only one who was so feeble, thanks for reassuring me.

demos is a wanker's rhetorical word for the population

If there is a distinction in my mind between commentariat and bloggertariat, it is that commentary is something that is informed, judicious and considered, while blogging is venting opinions which may or may not be well-thought through.

Of course that doesn't always work - Iain Dale is obviously more thoughtful than most tabloid newspapers, for instance.

Take a thread on here the other day about Mrs Thatcher. "Mrs Thatcher is evil". Followed by several definitions of the word evil. That's more of a visceral reaction than a balanced assessment, isn't it?

It would be helpful to post up some info from the organisers about the terms of the discussion. The distinction between 'commentariat and bloggertariat' suggests the debate is about the ralationship between opinion pieces in mainstream media and (opinion pieces?) by bloggers? Rather than between news gathering by maninstream media and by bloggers?

Is that right? We need to make that clear because otherwise we can't assess the benefits or dangers of the filtering that Justine mentions in her post. For news gathering we tend to think of filtering in terms of fact-checking for the sake of accuracy. (That's where MSM gets its sense of advantage over bloggers -- the trusted brands of accuracy.) For comment, 'filtering' would presumbably be a process of ensuring that opinions stated were favourable to the interests of whoever is providing the platform for the comment. E.g. newspapers have party political loyalties and commercial interests. Mumsnet (as the business hosting some blogs) has some ideological loyalties (fairly uncontroversial and fluffy ones) and of course commercial imperatives of its own. (So it is wrong to say simply that blogging is unfiltered and commentriat is filtered.)

Also, the term 'blogging' is a bit too vague. Does it mean much more than 'saying what you think on the internet'? Does it mean 'saying what you think on the internet in certain distinctive journal-like forms'? In either case it doesn't really set up who it is we are talking about in our contrast with the 'commentariat'. We need to think of a sub-group of (interesting? informed? significant? motivated? close-to-the-action) online communicators.

What is that sub-group?

In short, info please on what's meant by 'commentariat', bloggertariat' amd 'winning'.

'vs.' and 'who's' I'm ok with I think.

Growing up - I agree re thye filtering, but you can get some pretty extreme comments about comment pieces which, as long as they do not break the law, stay - and I think this is in the best interests of free speech.

I genuinely think people should be allowed to 'say' anything - that's different from prothletizing, or coming up with a programme for putting abuse into action.

Many people will not think of themselves as anti-semetic, simply anti-Israeli, without realising that the thinsg they are repeating from the media are directly filtered from extremism and the worst kind of myopia. They don't check their sources, or the medias