Everybody would be thrilled to know the dirt on the great orstalyan, media, groupthink.

A book by an insider is really needed. I suspect you are one of the very few, capable, of making it interesting and honest.

The long arm indeed! Francis Wheen spoke at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival a couple of years back and now I’m the owner of a large collection of Richard Thompson’s music and have seen a concert.

It’s good to hear that you don’t hold blogs in as much contempt as you seemed to, and I agree that the sniggerers are at least as much to blame — and also that people who think blogs are a substitute for old-style journalism are living in a fool’s paradise. (I think there are fewer of these than there used to be.)

It’s not linked to in my comment here, but in another post on the Festival of Ideas on my own blog I think I very appreciatively told the story (which wiped out any residual negativity I may have been feeling) about you crossing the street on your way to the festival venue, realising someone was shouting angrily at you out of a truck, and having it dawn on you by slow degrees that the truck driver had mistaken you for John Howard.

Whenever MSM writers step across the (illusionary?) void to comment on blogs, those writers are treated with respect – though challenged. Secondly, that input is enjoyed. Thirdly, it doesn’t seem to negatively affect professional work. Finally, it does us all the world of good.

Cheers, GM, and a lovely Sunday evening to you, in the company of good minds and fair hearts.

My election policy blog (and I stick to that term in this instance, even though we all agree that what I do is journalism, not blogging) would have been a farce if I had less experience as a journalist. Why, to borrow a Ruddism? One reason among many, is because I would not have had the patience to write quickly, and calmly, in response to readers.

Some readers can be cranky. Like most human beings, they have an over-active niggle gene. The niggle gene is a good thing for a journalist to have because he/she can aim it at those in power. But it doesn’t work when engaging in a two-way dialogue with readers.

When I say a decade ago I would have been useless, I feared I would have treated some readers in the same way as politicians, as targets deserving of my razor wit(lessness).

I may still react more curtly than I should to some readers, hence the notion that I am only a little more advanced today.

That’s interesting, GM.

Perhaps part of the skill and experience bloggers have is precisely interaction on the nets. That’s not really a “professional” skill as such – but it’s interesting to note that in some senses it – or at least social interaction – is increasingly being recognised as one – in part prompted by attempts historically to demonstrate the value of “attributes” women often bring to the workplace being revalued as “skills”. There’s another whole story about emotional labour to be told, here, I think, and also one about a blurring of and expansion of skills proper to particular professions – in this case journalism. Because blogs pioneered what is now being incorporated into the expectations of “media work” (on which see Mark Deuze’s excellent book of the same title) and that may also explain some resistances.

I’d also point out that many bloggers are professionals of various sorts when wearing other hats than that of blogger.

There may also be a dynamic feeding the “bloggers v. journos” debate from the late reconceptualisation of journalism as a profession and all its own tensions with what’s represented by terms like “craft”, “trade” and so on – and the angst in some circles about “media studies” courses at uni and the appropriateness or otherwise of teaching journalism.

All this would need more analysis, and like Laura, I’m referring not to you specifically but to the whole thing.

I agree with you that the kinds of writing skills and psychological qualities you identified can make for good, rewarding blogging. But they can be acquired in so many different fields and through many different experiences. I wouldn’t accept that working in journalism necessarily inculcates more patience and a thicker skin than being a teacher, say, or a bhuddist, or a middle child. But then I don’t think you would argue so generally.

PS Meganomics has been dead-quiet for the past 24 hours

It’s the entire intertubes, that unimportant sporting event in China may have something to do with it. First the smog now this, dammed Chinese!

Yep, it is as a journalist that I write for The Australian online. It can’t be any other way, unfortunately.

Kim, don’t worry I wasn’t making some phony observation about the supposed distinction between professional and amateur. But you are right, I view what I do on the net, in part, as professional development for me.

My election policy blog (and I stick to that term in this instance, even though we all agree that what I do is journalism, not blogging) would have been a farce if I had less experience as a journalist. Why, to borrow a Ruddism? One reason among many, is because I would not have had the patience to write quickly, and calmly, in response to readers.

Some readers can be cranky. Like most human beings, they have an over-active niggle gene. The niggle gene is a good thing for a journalist to have because he/she can aim it at those in power. But it doesn’t work when engaging in a two-way dialogue with readers.

When I say a decade ago I would have been useless, I feared I would have treated some readers in the same way as politicians, as targets deserving of my razor wit(lessness).

I may still react more curtly than I should to some readers, hence the notion that I am only a little more advanced today.

The thing I most enjoy about the web is learning something from someone I initially disagreed with. As a journalist, I will get challenged in ways that bloggers won’t. There are so many assumptions operating in a newspaper reader’s mind that I can’t begin to untangle. But when readers hop on to my fraction of the internet, I want to learn how to give each one the benefit of the doubt. When they begin their post with “you moron”, I try to engage without taking it personally. If they don’t give me the benefit of the doubt in return, they cede the right for an on-going conversation. Their stuff will still go on the site, but they can’t expect me to be their punching bag.

This is not meant to sound arrogant. It is, as its most basic level, an issue of time-management and sanity. Some people get their rocks off trading typed abuse with people they have never meant and will never meet. I’m not one of them. Colleagues who leave the moderating of their columns to others are probably being wise. Trust me, I’ve seen the crap that people send in. It would do your head in if you took it literally.

This isn’t a concern in the same way for the blogging community. You can self-select your audience a lot quicker than we do. The people who come to your site come in good faith; like minds so to speak. There is no sense that you are an authority figure to be challenged, so your conversations can go in many more directions.

As Robert notes:

“One of the difficult areas in this topic is an understanding of the different cultures involved: blogging and MSM. We might pretend to be sympathetic one for the other, but I expect one precludes – until and for now – such sympathy for the other.”

True, up to a point. Perhaps the defensiveness at both ends stems from the following: The MSM perceives that many blogs operate on the premise of re-writing content generated by the MSM. (I am not speaking as me here, but giving you a take on perceptions). The MSM sees there is an audience for this dialogue, but can’t be sure how to measure if it is real. It sees, too, that some bloggers are seriously good writers and makes them an offer. The MSM also thinks ‘why let the bloggers pollute out copy’. ‘Why don’t we go online and pull their readers over to our sites.’ The bloggers say ‘get off our turf, what you are doing is journalism, not blogging’. As I say, all true, up to a point.

But the competion, and the conversation can’t be bad for either party. All that can happen from here on is innovation, and a better understanding.

GM

PS Meganomics has been dead-quiet for the past 24 hours. Perhaps we have the same reader, and they had the sense to see I was doing my tying here. Thanks again for the time.

I think GM’s comments about experience were not about professional development or professionalism v amateurism. I think he was giving context and describing his own situation.

Cheers

BBWfB