“A web of ‘citizen journalists’ cannot replace newspapers.” suggested an opinion piece in the Age today.
Without hard edged/nosed well trained journalists, says the author, no one would have learned of Watergate, and us plebs would not have known what to make of Julian Assange’s leaks. While people are right to suggest that some parts of the media [emphasis is mine] squander the public’s goodwill with a focus on the fatuous, and on trivia.
Blogs have their limitations as well, though, and we must be careful not to turn our backs on the serious journalists who put in the shoe leather [i.e. not the boot] and actually speaking with pollies, police and others.
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Enough about that opinion, let’s talk about us. Novice that I am, I have formed some views about what blogging can/might mean to the good citizens of Blogonia.
Possibilities include
- forming friendships one can value;
- learning interesting stuffs about all sorts of interesting stuffs;
- armchair travel;
- inspiration;
- NO canned laughter [had to put that in… Mrs Bucket is doing her thing in the next room];
- lots of clever and witty exchanges;
- getting away with typos;
- reely reely larfing;
- genuine exchanges of ideas without parliamentary ‘question-time’-type, puerile, play-yard point-scoring;
- having a whinge with people who might sometimes agree with us [me].
At least bloggers get to talk about/hear about important things the press doesn’t have time for… the stuff that’s important to the little people… like a young man expelled from a local state school because he is too disruptive in class and, yes, we know he has Aspergers, but we can’t get an aide for him because he is “not disabled enough”.
As for asking pollies the hard questions – puhleeze!
If a whole generation are growing up antipathetic to democracy, it’s no surprise.
I don’t blame the press for the inane 30 second sound-bite BS pollies serve up, I blame the pollies. And if the press can’t get anything better out of them, well, it’s not just a matter of whether we get the press we deserve, but one of whether we get the government we deserve ‘n’ all.
PS the opinion piece to which I refer was written by a former Labor political speechmaker. Go figure.
