It’s sad to read that Tim Dunlop is closing down The Road to Surfdom, one of the original Australian political blogs, and one that’s been a great contributor to commentary and discussion over a sustained period of time. It’s not wholly unexpected, but it’s still sad. Tim, the other Surfdom bloggers who won’t be continuing to blog individually, and the joint itself will all be very much missed.
Tim has some reflections on the role online media plays and its value and potential vis-a-vis the mainstream media which I think are clearly heartfelt and incredibly important, so I’m going to take the liberty of quoting his last post at some length. In particular, I want to endorse Tim’s sentiments about the necessity of supporting and growing the independent online mediaspace, and I want to point out how those comments have direct implications for the sort of work we do at LP, and how that work could be enhanced. But more of that later.
As difficult as this decision is, there is nonetheless something apt about the timing. The blog began life not long after I moved to the US at the end of 2001. It got up and running in the strange twilight period between the events of September 11 and the disastrous decision by the Bush Administration to launch a war in Iraq in March 2003. With the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency that period has come to something of a natural and symbolic end and thus, for me at least, some of the central motivations for this sort of writing has dissipated. This blog, and others like it, have seen off the end of the Howard Government and the Bush Administration and on that score I couldn’t be happier.This is not to say that there isn’t now a role for the sort of work blogs do, only that I, personally, am not in position to take on that sort of commitment at the moment. In fact, the need, especially in Australia, for wise independent voices to discuss and dissect the great issues of the day is as great as it has ever been and so that’s what I want to go out with: a plea for people to support — genuinely support — independent media in this country.
The fact is, Australia’s mainstream media is moribund. Although there are great journalists and other contributors out there, the institution itself is stuck in a hopeless, self-serving, tenured cul-de-sac and is failing in its job to properly inform, discuss, debate and entertain. Not to mention, reinvent itself. The form is dominated by a handful of insiders who have grown so content with their own lot that they are immune to sensible criticism and lack the self-awareness to reassess what it is they are doing. They are supported in this self-satisfied loop by a political class that is happy to exploit the status quo, feeding them leaks and other tidbits to keep the whole charade ticking over in such a way that nothing really changes.
The narratives, the memes, the discussions of our political and social life are set in concrete and endlessly recycle. We have learned to accept the daily, largely manufactured, controversies of political and social discussion in lieu of genuine examination. The same voices — and there are only about 20 of them — continue to define what is important or useful or worthy of discussion and the few organs of the mainstream media keep churning them out. Their lack of seriousness is only matched by their lack of courage.
To say that a fully-functioning independent media is the answer is glib. It is not that easy. And yet, there it is. The idea is not for such independent groups to replace the mainstream media but merely to get them to lift their game, to lead by example.
The situation as it currently stands is not completely hopeless. For all their failings, there are some new voices out there trying to make a difference. Some of them are thinktanks, some of them of grassroots organisations, some of them are blogs or other forms of online media. None of them has really “broken through” in the way that is necessary to make a real difference, but they are a start.
At the end of the day, though, they will only succeed if, firstly, they can organise themselves and offer a genuinely professional product and, secondly, if we-the-people properly support them. That means not just reading them and cheering them on but, by and large, financing them. And I don’t mean a few bucks in a tip jar once a year: I mean serious ongoing financial support. For as long as I have been blogging I’ve been hearing people tell me how wonderful blogs and other new media are and how much they enjoy and appreciate them. But I have very rarely seen those fine words and sentiments backed up with hard cash. It is about time it was.
I don’t mean you should toss a whole lot of cash at some guy with a blog. But at some point, enough of you are going to have to take a bit of a risk and invest a decent sum in this or that site so that they can genuinely operate as independent media. And the online media itself is going to have to get organised to the point where they can offer a product that is going to attract that sort of contribution, as well as money from other sources, advertising, or whatever.
Until this happens, stop whinging about the mainstream media. Spare me the heartfelt cries of how much you love this blog or that blog and just accept the fact that if you really want a functioning independent media you are going to have to pay for it. It’s that friggin simple.
Tim goes on to thank everyone for the support given to his various online endeavours, and I want to thank him for them too, but I’d mainly like to riff off these comments I’ve excerpted.
First, I really don’t think that anyone could disagree with his diagnosis of the media, and of its multitude of failings. One could add to that the observation that Australia fails to support many outlets for writing on public affairs outside newspapers themselves – while there are some exceptions such as The Monthly and Overland, we have nothing like the rich culture of magazine journalism and commentary that exists in comparable countries. That’s not just a factor of the distribution costs involved in a big country and the relatively small market. It’s also a product of the monopolisation of public space – and here Fairfax are equally at fault with News Limited – and this is why the dumbing down of ABC news is so lamentable. But it’s also a product of our own culture – a failure to engage publicly which is one of the worst aspects of the Australian political landscape.
If you wanted to make a living as a freelance writer in Australia, you could do so by writing about gadgets or travel or writing for teen mags (and I’m not knocking…) – but it’s just about impossible for anyone bar a very small hermetic circle to do so in writing about public affairs. And that’s one of the reasons why our “public intellectuals” are largely such a lacklustre lot – the “marketplace of ideas” is literally anti-competitive because of the lack of viable pathways for anyone to put the time and effort into breaking into it.
Ideally, online should be the place where this can be remedied. To some degree it is, but Tim’s quite right to say that there are barriers to the improvement and progress of what we’ve got (whether we’re talking about things on the internet like Crikey or New Matilda or the blogosphere.) I’m constantly thinking about how we could make LP a much better place in terms of all sorts of features and depth of analysis, but what blocks us from doing that is time. And therefore money. In trying to “monetise” the site, we’ve discovered that it’s possible to maintain our current readership levels and earn enough small change to supplement the income of one of us – me. But we’ve been set back by the state of the economy and the decline in advertising sales and the price at which ads can be sold, and that’s also made it more difficult to go ahead with the various strategies we have in mind for expanding the reach of the joint as quickly as we’d like (though there will be some movement on this front in the new year). I’ve always been of the view we could relatively easily triple the size of our readership just through some straightforward marketing, but that costs.
But – not to put too fine a point on it – if we really wanted to try to provide the sort of independent media we think we deserve in this country, we’d need several people working full time on such an effort. There is just no other way.
The frustrating thing is that I know we’ve collectively got the expertise to do it, but we can’t, because we don’t have the seed money to even get started. (And I very much include the LP community in that “we”.)
Now that I’ve got more time post-PhD, I’m planning to take the work I did on how we could grow online independent media a couple of years ago (and as some will know, quite a lot of dosh and about six months’ work was put in to mapping this out) off the shelf and see what we can do with it. At this stage, it might be necessary to find an “angel” or two to fund startup costs, but while I’m convinced that could be done, I think that process in itself might be quite a lengthy one.
So what can you do if you want to see a better and enduring online independent media?
If you like what we do here, please do take the opportunity to promote LP to friends and colleagues. If you know of anyone who you think might want to support an expansion of the online mediasphere, get in touch with me! And please consider unblocking ads on this site, and/or giving us a donation.
I’m sure LP will be with us for a long time to come, but we need to think about whether we want to grow and expand, do a holding operation, or scale back to amateur blogging. The latter always has a bit of pull, because the amount of work that goes into multiple daily posting, and making sure that quality is maintained (though it could be improved with more time!) is considerable, and carries an opportunity cost. Although I’ve flirted with the “blogger cherry-picked by bigger media” thing in my time, I’ve become increasingly convinced that’s not the way to go – it’s much better if we can collectively decide that we want to provide a bigger and better online alternative to the mainstream media. But I think Tim is quite right about this – if you don’t show you love it, you could lose it!
Elsewhere: Surfdom’s end is also noted by Terry Flew.
Update: Some excellent reflections on this topic from Guy Beres. Gary Sauer-Thompson at Public Opinion.
Update: Guy Rundle in Crikey.
Update: An Onymous Lefty and The Interpreter.
Update: Robert Corr. John Quiggin.
Mark, when you refer to independent media, what exactly do you mean? Does it mean independent of News and Fairfax? If you are supported by wealthy angels is that still independent?
I’m referring to independence as in non-corporate media, marlin. And one of the things I’m trying to get people to think about is funding models. It would be much much better for preserving independence, imho, if we could crowdsource funding and investment for independent media!
Thanks Mark. I am sincere in trying to understand what you mean. So, when you refer to non-corporate media do you mean that ideally LP wouldn’t be corporatised in nature or do you mean that LP wouldn’t be supported by corporations?
What I mean, marlin, is that ideally we wouldn’t be pursuing profit as such – but be a financially viable not for profit. But if you have to go down the investor route, then you have to (in almost all instances unless you find a particularly benevolent angel) aim for a profit so there’s a return on investment comparable (at least) to other possible applications of the same amount of capital.
Got it, thanks. If you went down the investor path would you be worried about how you might keep the independent nature of the blog?
Not to any great degree! That is – I don’t think that it needs to place any particular restriction on the nature of the content, from what I gleaned when I was exploring all this. But it might mean that there’s an incentive to maximise writing on certain subjects which generate more traffic.
Basically, there are degrees in all this, but I think the more independent you can be the better!
Elsewhere: Surfdom’s end is also noted by Terry Flew.
I want a new newspaper myself. They’re all crap! Even if it was weekly. This is the real Ggap in AU, for my money. I look forward to seeing whatever comes of this, and my one modest suggestion here is a subscription style bottom-up funding arrangement pending “angels” of a wealthier variety. Drawing in the LP/ blogger base, if you will.
Anyway, back to ranting: the ABC is rubbish – but at least it can be saved. We need a purge!! Purge now, Rudd! Save Aunty from the liberal stooges, chuck em out on their bums. Unceremoniously! Their appointments were entirely cynical wrecking jobs, and deep down they’ll know they deserve *no courtesy at all* as they’re escorted from the building.
PS This is probably not the time to admit I first clicked on ‘Road to Surfdom’ just now.
Still, I gather it was big!
PPS Bring back the flute!
Much has been made of the user-generated model with citizen journalists as the online media producers of the future. It still takes time, expertise and coordination. Multi-media content, which is an essential element of any online media organisation, is very expensive in all these aspects. (Yet people like Engage Media are pioneering this approach.) It means funds. “Citizen” invariably means unpaid.
Robert Silvers, the editor of the New York Review of Books was interviewed on Radio National today. One of their initial strategies was to find high profile contributors who gave their services free. We need some kind of approach which taps into our extensive expertise and resources. Perhaps we could start with an online brainstorm.
P.S. If you don’t mind the plug Blogocrats is trying to keep a bit of Tim’s vision alive.
Blogs take energy. People burn out. As sad as it is when a favourite blog retires, sometimes interesting things arise out of the ashes.
Corporate media burnt out long ago.
Sometime we’ve just got to pace ourselves in order to launch a new attack on all that is wrong with this society.
It could be worth looking at some kind of co-operative structure (financially and institutionally) for a financially viable independent media (by which I mean, able to pay one or more people for the time necessary to keep it going in a culturally viable way.) I agree Mark that time is the big issue. And time=money in most of our lives.
another outspoken female is right: bloggers get burnt out, but they often show up elsewhere once they’ve had a breather. As a former unpaid proprietor of a non-profit independent media outlet, it annoyed me greatly to see mournful, hand-wringing reactions to our decision to close it down. We were exhausted! We had no money! We were relieved to have our lives back! People will never put a monetary value on what you do as long as you’re prepared to keep providing it for nothing.
Also, I have to say that there is far more to ‘independent media’ than the political/policy/”democratic process” blog sector – although these bloggers often carry on as though theirs is the only kind of blogging, and the only alternative to mainstream newspapers and magazines. I mean, Tim talks about a self-satisfied cabal of insiders…
I’ve written before about how the idea of “quality journalism” is too often conflated with chauvinistic wonkery rather than journalistic accuracy, integrity, originality and curiosity. Half the problem with both blogs and old media is the abandonment of these basic professional skills, which is why I personally don’t put much stock in “citizen journalism”. User-generated content is part of the problem; it isn’t the solution.
Is this a veiled reference to the great Tim Dunlop Blog Post Purge Controversy of, oh, whenever it was, back when he was doing Blogocracy for News Corp?
I had to giggle the other day when I read (I’m sorry, I don’t remember where) that ‘the credibility of blogs is damaged by lack of proof reading and fact checking’. Funny, when Fairfax got rid of half their subs and their website became riddled with errors I thought the same thing.
But no, it’s only *blogs* that get it wrong.
I’ve always argued micro-payments could be the answer Mark. Subscriptions could be set quite low, and yet could still generate a significant amount of revenue. I’m not saying you should immediately turn LP into a paying site, but it has to be considered in the long term. I pay $3 every couple of days merely to read the AFR, and I pay it happily because it gives me a level of journalism I can’t find elsewhere. Similarly, paid music downloads, and subscription services, are slowly beginning to catch on.
On this topic see also Farhad Manjoo on Facebook
I enjoy reading this blog, but I have to say, I can find it pretty hermetic, too, with its narrow range of interests (esp wrt international issues), and, like most generalist blogs, a tendency to define itself in opposition to this thing called The Mainstream Media. Apart from its worthy reflexive commentary on media representation of our social and political life – with those hopeless limits that you refer to – there is not much original news or information here, and not much depth. This blog, and perhaps most others, merely add another layer to, rather than cut through, the mediation of our socio-politics. They don’t offer real alternative truths and knowledge that contest meaningfully for legitimacy with the dominant ones.
I agree that the future of blogs as a viable alternative to commercial media might necessitate some degree of commercialization – or perhaps professionalization is a better word – but I wonder how they would be different from the MSM in the end.
I might add, too, that the real depth I find is not in the media or blogs at all but on the closed email mailing lists to which I subscribe. Those are where real debate happens and real knowledge comes out – for me at least.
M, I’m not sure what sort of email lists you mean?
My view is that there is a lot of deliberative and interactive activity going on in all sorts of places that aren’t quite public – some of which might want to out itself I think. As a general rule, I think that translation, if you like, between professional, academic and/or special interest spheres into a broader public sphere is a good thing, and one we should be encouraging. It’s not without its difficulties but then nothing is.
As to what’s on this blog – in part again that’s because we all find ourselves writing on the run a lot of the time and that often means that quick posts fall into a groove. I think maybe once or twice a week there’s something here that’s really outstandingly good, but there could be more of that if people could devote more time to it. Having said that, I also think a lot of the criticism (much of which may be legitimate) we receive from time to time comes from a “passive reader” model. We very often do try very hard to be responsive – writing posts on subjects people request – but this medium works best when it’s a collective endeavour. Want to read about something? Propose a guest post, write it yourself and link, etc.
Similarly, and I’ve been involved in some preliminary discussions about a blog model which would try to avoid negativity – it takes a lot more time to be original and constructive than critical and suggestive, to be honest. There’s also a need for what Tim Dunlop called “rapid fire commentary” and providing a forum for discussion – and that’s always been one of our remits.
It’s also worth noting that if you look at stats on particular posts (and there are some exceptions, but it’s pretty much a rule) while people might say – “sick of reading stuff about Peter Costello or critiques of op/eds or whatevs” – those are in fact the posts that get a lot more traffic than “serious” policy ones.
We do by the way eschew a lot of the “critique of op/ed” thing now, and we try to write about a broader range of topics, and not just follow the news cycle. Contesting dominant knowledges, by the way, can be quite routine in and of itself – my example here would be some Marxist blogs I occasionally read – not the sectarian ones – which are quite formulaic and news cycle driven. There’s also the issue of how much energy you want to expend defending the legitimacy of your premises – something I’ve found quite draining and offputting when I’ve posted on some occasions about alternative approaches to political economy.
suz and Ben, worthwhile ideas.
Mel, sorry, I don’t for a moment want to imply that the blogosphere is just politics. I’m careful in talks and presentations I’ve given about this to point that out, and it’s also a point made strongly in what I’ve written here and elsewhere about the stoopidities of journos v. bloggers. I was just talking in the post about this patch on the tubes, if that wasn’t entirely clear.
Wow, no more Surfdom. That’s gone and made me more introspective than I wanted to be today.
Here in the UK there is a debate raging about the influence of the blogosphere in UK society. I gather that the general consensus is that blogging here isn’t taken seriously by anyone at all. Well, there’s Guido Fawkes who is basically a UK version of Tim Blair except that what he lacks in Tim’s culture war/real war wingnuttery he makes up for with just utterly stupid tabloid stuff.
There is no real progressive, unified, blogosphere to speak of in the UK. There are a lot of reasons why this is so, partially it’s to do with timing, partially it is to do with a nominally left-wing party being in power for so long.
Anyway, I’m with Tim and Mark. The Australian media needs its culture to be shaken up a bit. The major political parties don’t want to do this as it is far from being in their interests as they benefit greatly from this greatly predictible culture.
Hopefully (sigh, at some point when we all have more time) the ozplogosphere can really organize to raise the bar a bit. We are definitely further down the line than some other countries (for instance the UK and a lt of Europe) but I feel we still have a lot of innovatin’ to do before we are really much of an alternative to the MSM.
That’s the professionalisation thing again, I think, mick.
As counterpoint to M, I read Larvatus Prodeo not for news but for analysis. One of my frustrations with the Newscorps and the Fairfaxes is not lack of analysis, or even lack of good analysis, but its admixture with consistent bad analysis by the usual suspects. When you don’t know who to trust to tell the truth, then I start distrusting the whole paper. With LP, I can be assured that the authors are telling the truth as they see it. Not the whole truth, but who knows everything?
Mark – have you ever thought of running off flyers or business cards to advertise LP? There are a lot of physical bulletin boards within 10 km of the CBD. Get the address and one of the logos (preferably the Story Bridge) on it. Maybe those cheap rip-off bits of paper (like someone advertising for a spare room.) It’s lo-tech, but it may just get the word out.
And yes, I would pay money for LP.
Down and Out, yep I have thought of that and I’ve got a friend who’s a recovering music promoter and quite familiar with the ins and outs of street promo.
Btw, I certainly wouldn’t want LP to become pay for view. It’s nice to know that some people wouldn’t mind! I was thinking more along the lines of Ben’s idea being morphed into some sort of planned donation program, or maybe some other optional goodies people might get in return for their dosh.
Mark – which thing was the professionalisation thing again? My comment was kinda scattering out on any number of potential things tied up in the whole prefessionalism in the blogosphere meme.
As far as I can tell in the UK there are very few blogs that have any sort of broad appeal. I genuinly think that there are cultural reasons why blogs here aren’t following a similar trajectory to the Australian ’sphere. For instance, the print media is still huge (partially because everyone reads the newspaper on the way to work in the morning!). There’s a point of view, and I’m not sure I’m completely down with this view, that reading and writing blogs is seen to be something done by Westminster insiders and is not something that the average person would bother to do.
As for in Oz, yea sure. I was just mimicking what you said (in a much more coherent fashion) up above.
Oh, sorry, mick, that was in response to this from you:
As I was saying in the post, part of my frustration comes from the fact that I think the ideas and the will are there but the time is lacking!
The other thing going on in the UK might be in part what I was saying about a very vibrant periodical press, a range of partisan views in “quality” newspapers, and the fact that a lot of the big media sites have done web 2.0 so well compared to their Australian counterparts – ie The Graudian.
Mark – I think that you are probably right, there are a lot of ideas and the culture is somewhat ripe for it to happen. When I said “a lot” I think I meant “some”. And when I said “innovatin’” I think I probable should have said “organizin’”.
As for the UK – well, the press is marginally better than here in Oz and you are so right about the better use of Web 2.0 stuff. The Guardian and BBC websites are pretty slick – well they would be if they hired some folk to actually delete the 10000 comments from BNP trolls that tend to show up every day.
My thoughts here. To be brutally honest, I think the Australian political blogosphere has been treading water a bit over the last few years. With have some great partisans amongst us writing some witty, intelligent, and occasionally downright brilliant stuff, but I think those that suggest that the UK and the US are a few streets ahead of us are right.
Apart from a lot of dedicated and interested people, I think what might really be needed is for a significant number of folks to put their money where their mouths are and fund a blogosphere alternative (or several!) that realistically can compete with the MSM news sites when it comes to relevance and visibility, through advertising, “real world” community-building and whatever it takes down that path.
Guy, that’s a great post, and I agree with a lot of what you say. I’ve noted in what I’ve written here about the trajectory of blogging previously that the MSM colonisation of the blog space with their “bulletin board” style of op/ed plus largely unrelated comments has been a big dampener on the growth of the independent blogosphere (and while there are some issues with the News Ltd hosting of Blogocracy, which I suspect Tim has thought through now – Tim’s efforts were a big exception – as are Blair and Bolt, who do do blogging). The deliberate refusal on the part of most of the “bloggers” to ever name any independent bloggers, even while they are attacking us, doesn’t help either because it restricts the awareness of what we do, and at the same time sends a message to a broader audience that what we do is terrible, without allowing them to find out for themselves. It’s really vicious, and unethical, but it’s typical of the pathetic fruits of media concentration Tim was talking about.
Christian Kerr, I’m looking at you! Among others.
Certainly there have been other developments as well. I was reading a book about political blogging in the US and one of the original Virginian bloggers, Waldo Yaquith, was lamenting the loss of the small scale civil discourse that existed at the start – before his own particular blog environment turned into Kos style partisan “netroots” stuff on a smaller template. If you think back to Backpages, RTS, Troppo, Quiggin, and yep, Catallaxy and Currency Lad back in the day – it was a very different vibe. Actually, I think it started to shift in the run up to the 2004 election.
There are gains as well as losses there too.
To some degree, I agree that there has been a bit of marking time going on. But I think that there’s some reason to be pleased that we’ve largely maintained our reach beyond the federal election. If the problem in the UK is that Tory blogs thrive while left ones wither because of a Labour government, I think it’s a not inconsiderable achievement to keep left blogs going in the era of Rudd.
But I think it’s a good thing that we do sit back and take stock and ask where we go to from here – and how.
Some random thoughts:
* “some sort of planned donation program” like PBS pledges perhaps
* use retirees like me
* go international – ‘Voices without Votes’ has been a hoot
* start or link to a multi-media channel
* get a few more geeks on board
* more street voices
* explore what it means to be “professional”, perhaps even train people in such things as journalistic ethics or develop a code of practice a bit like a commons licence
…
Back Monday.
“it was a very different vibe. Actually, I think it started to shift in the run up to the 2004 election.”
Not surprising. The FIASCO in Iraq brought out the best & the worst in us. Keeping children in detention camps can have the same effect.
An informative thread. Yer no corporate puppet Mark, that’s why I often read your pieces when I’m not focused on commenting elsewhere. And why I’ll miss Road to Surfdom. It should be obvious to all now, including this bearish pontificator, that Tim Dunlop kept his INTEGRITY.
Ya know, some criticised RTS for being “too angry”, “too partisan” or “having too many crackpots”. But when you have a group of bloggers & commentors from all walks of life “telling it as they see it” & being FEARLESS in their appraisal of governments, corporations (including the media) & the effects of their policies and profiteering, yer gonna get hit by various storms of criticism by those who believe they have much to lose if those views & ideas spread through the community.
As a proud RTS regular I thank you for your supportive words Mark. I’ve had my differences w/ some on this site but feel compelled to say it would leave a large hole in the blogosphere if its existence ended. I hope your efforts & bold plans come to fruition. The closing of RTS has had a deep emotional impact on me so I’ve decided to take some time out from blog commenting in order to reflect on the journey we took & what was achieved. And I need new glasses ’cause everything is blurred and I feel like I’m writing in a swimming pool.
Anyway, keep up the good work LP. At least we saw out Howard & Bush. Thank gawd for small mercies and the WAKING of the public. They sure snored long enuff…:)
N’
Mark, yeah, absolutely. I mean obviously blogs like Daily Kos, for example, have formed unprecedentedly effective political communities based around partisanship, so I don’t think it necessarily means that partisanship is a bad thing. On the other hand, I think we all know that blogging is at its most interesting when we get some civilised arguments going on between people who have disparate points of view. I’m not sure how we can effectively do the groundwork to encourage this sort of interaction whilst avoiding the predictable flame-based “I’m right, no I’m right” type discussions.
Taking a step back, its probably worth noting that there are quite a few good blogs out there doing the rounds that do encourage flaming and slander. I’m just not sure that those blogs realistically have the ability to make the jump from “good, (mostly) clean fun” to making a real impact.
Gary Sauer-Thompson at Public Opinion.
I might add I only started blogging as a protest against the MSMs scandalous and ongoing disregard of Portuguese forts in Asia, Obscure Antipodean films, and 60s French Girl Pop!
I’m going to be honest. For what it’s worth, when I went to the UK recently for a month of reading and reflecting, I was struck by the fact that The Independent is a (mostly) viable enterprise. This is obviously a function of having a massive population, but it’s also: daily, news-oriented and investigative, and it creates its own space and news – whether or not you agree with its politics and stance, this is an important point. I don’t see LP as having the potential to morph into the kind of news outlet that we need in Australia. I often enjoy reading LP, but it is what it is – by and large, a circle jerk news commentary blog, with occasional long and interesting vignettes into its authors’ current obsessions and a community composed of equal parts cultural studies obsessives and bored pensioners. Much like NewMatilda, except without the money to attract and commission mid-to-high-profile contributors, and not being anywhere nearly as good as the Griffith Review at ‘outing’ the not-quite-public deliberative and interactive activity, due both to the time constraints you outline Mark but also, it would seem to me, due to the enclosed and self-fuelling nature of the blog’s community. Frankly the blog isn’t objective or generative enough to be anything but an opinion platform. I agree with M that reading LP might add a layer to my news digest, but there’s little actual news. I wouldn’t donate to support it as a new news venture, or to support your being employed FT by it, with its current vision. Which is a bit sad, because as I say I find LP interesting and I like to read it, but I am saving my $upport for a genuine alternative news vision.
I’m neither a Cultural Studies obsessive nor a bored pensioner. Oh, and thanks for writing off a whole section of the population. I thought that one of the ideals of the social justice movements like the 8 hour / Chartists etc was to give working people the leisure at the end of the working day and at the end of their working lives, likewise, to self-educate and contribute to social discussion. Now, though, some smartarse will write you off as worthless if you’ve ended your employment life. Or does being a self-funded retiree allow you to retain a shred of cred in this ageist world view?
People like me have very limited time – OK so if you denigrate people who do find themselves with time as bludgers, that will make sure peoples’ voices don’t get heard no matter what stage of the life cycle they’re at. Unless of course they’re a member of the magical MSM. Nice.
I agree with M that reading LP might add a layer to my news digest, but there’s little actual news.
Oh FFS for the 50,000th time:
Blogging.
Is.
Not.
News.
Tim, I wish you hadn’t perpetuated this fallacy in your goodbye post.
I often enjoy reading LP, but it is what it is – by and large, a circle jerk –
And at that point I stopped reading. Was there anything worthwhile said after that?
I don’t know, DaOoSG. I rolled over and went to sleep.
Do I win a prize?
Actually, I’m a bored lawyer, but does that count?
Maybe I’ll have to retire or stop commentating. And comparing a news orgainisation like The Independent to a blog, is just plain stupid. But maybe you already knew that.
I lived and worked in Britain for a while, and in my experience, readers of ‘The Independent’ might as well have worn a t-shirt saying: “I am a boring todger who likes to think s/he is independent, without actually being challenged by independent points of view. I probably vote Liberal Democrat, because they also pride themselves on being independent without being challenging too”.
The funding model for an independent blog like LP, with an audience claimed to be as numerous as The Professional Idiot’s, is simple. Don’t hold out the bowl for donations, and never even consider charging people to read a post, ever. You take what advertising you can get, and a couple of times a year you self-publish books of the best essays, long posts, short posts and even chunks of comment exchanges. For those who want to support LP, they buy a book. Selling a couple of thousand self-published books a year for, say, $20, each should be enough to keep the site going and throw some bucks to the regular writers.
Micro-publishing would also mean that ‘Best of’ books from individual LP writers could be compiled and sold through the site. Forget book shops, the audience is here, every day, sell them something unique. There’s probably more than a few regular commenters who would be absolutely stoked to pay $20 once or twice a year to a get a nicely done paperback that has some of their better comments and rants included.
It’s an extremely simple thing to do. I’m amazed more blogs don’t do this.
Brief thoughts from a year or so as a hardcore poliblogger then about 3 more watching at the edges with little time and confusion about where to head next:
* Agree that raison d’etre (sp?) has shifted markedly now we’ve won the key arguments and rolled Bush and Howard.
* Lefties here never banded together and supported each other the way they did in the US.
* LP is a very good blog and you’ve personally been a supportive linker Mark so I say this with respect, but the growth of mega group blogs has also formed a separate narrative of independence as affects bloggers, making the small stand-alone poliblog a harder (if not impossible) enterprise (I think, I concede I haven’t been properly in the game a while).
* The editor is the much underrated position in traditional media and one factor that might make big multi-person we media into better, more consistent reads is a firmly wielded knife…. yes that crosses lots of other principles though!
* While we all love our medium here it is a risk that the universalism of blogs/net/facebook/twitter et al may mean the demise of the ability to earn a full time crust in the field. This may be a good thing in some ways…
* I know it’s imperfect but what do you think about convincing the Guardian to set up a proper Australian edition??
* Good luck.
Darryl: I might buy a book, but only if the title/subtitle was “Larvatus Prodeo 2005-2008: But Is She A Lesbian?”.
Seriously, the example of independent radio provides a very good model of how to go about fundraising. Partnerships with niche industry—music and publishing and arts for the youth stations, ethnic/language based business for the NESB/CALD stations—make the model viable without relying on ads. 2SER and FBi in Sydney do OK out of subscriptions, as does 4ZzZ in your town.
Blogs have a fraction of the listener base of radio stations, but then again, they have a fraction of the overheads.
It doesn’t have to be news, but it can be more than analysis of analysis or commentary on commentary. It’s always entertaining to read LP take down the latest nonsense from the stable of right-wing opinion-makers in the AGE/SMH/Australian, or a narrative conversation on daily party politics, but they are limited projects. The most compelling posts on LP are the ones that really offers insights that the MSM just don’t cover. When Kim discusses disability issues or Mark discusses the universities, they offer 1st person engagement with broader topics that a jobbing journo doesn’t get anywhere near.
On a more negative note, I am always surprised at the limited scope of LP, especially on regional issues. For all the vaunted three decades of Asian engagement promoted by progressive forces in Australia, LP demonstrates that no-one who posts or comments here knows anything or cares very much about our region.
If you have a point M, you’d do well to stop burying it in hyperbole.
quimalypense, actually I’d like to see more cultural obsessives and pensioners here!
And what I’m suggesting is not a news platform – Tim might have that in mind – I don’t think there’s any real value in independent “news gathering” as such – if it’s to be done at all well, you need equivalent resources to newspapers. The citizen journalism model can uncover different sorts of stories and even (again if well resourced) do investigations, but a “paper of record” is neither a feasible nor a valuable direction for independent online media. That’s not at all what I was implying when I was suggesting that LP could expand – I have in mind better resourced analysis among other things. There are niches, though, where it is possible to do a bit of reportage too.
Darryl, it’s not a bad idea – as is Liam’s community radio analogy. As it happens, I’m an old Zedhead from way back, and a friend of mine, General Zed, has just got a gig as marketing and promotions coordinator for the Zeds, and I’ve got some Sydney friends who work with 2SER. So there may be other synergies that could be explored – perhaps in terms of sharing content – as well as marketing ideas.
Armagny, to be honest with you, the big thing I miss the richness that a lot of small blogs used to bring to discussions – it was great when you could link to about 5 or 10 interrelated posts or posts on the same topic. We need to think, and start talking about, I’d suggest, how we could recreate some of that. Perhaps there’s other ways of doing “a group blog” which could capture some of that.
M, I agree about a lot of that. I’m not sure that it’s right that we don’t reach out into the region – the NZ election posts initiative is one recent thing, and Lefty E has a lot of expertise wrt Timor Leste, and if you go back over the archives, he was providing us with informed, well researched commentary during some of the political upheavals happening there over recent years – and I went out and looked for someone who had good connections with the democracy movement in Zim to do us a guest post on what was occurring there earlier this year.
Again, it’s a matter in part of time, and partly of the existing base of expertise and interest. I’d reiterate what I said earlier about our openness to guest posts, other suggestions, etc.
Please explain?
Not only that, LP offers Australia’s premier Quinceland-centric perspective; and it doesnt get more regional than that.
Im only half joking: I thought much of the media was playing catch up with LP (Mark, Kim, others) on Rudd and Swan in 2007.
Nobody in Melb and Syd MSM or blogdom for that matter seemed to even be aware they had form in rise of the Goss govt, and there were lessons from that etc.
Agreed. Maybe the Crikey blogs could be a model? Their live blog of the American election worked very well partly, I think, because it brought all of the bloggers and commenters into one place.
Centralising things a bit more would also relieve some of the time problems. 20 irregular contributors instead of half a dozen regulars.
Lefty E @48, and if we could afford defamation lawyers, we could have written a lot more of the inside story on Rudd!
Lyn, yep, there’s an idea. I gave up on the Kos diaries model, for a number of reasons, but it might be possible to think something through that enables irregular crossposting or posting without the need to sign up for the daily slog!
No, neither am I, Helen, but like you I was outraged by, and do in fact hereby Loudly Denounce, the open insult to both groups by ‘quimalypense’ (very apt handle there, dude) — whom I haven’t noticed making much of a contribution to LP over the years him/herself, unless s/he is lurking under a (new) pseudonym.
No.
M – it was this:
“that no-one who posts or comments here knows anything or cares very much about our region”
Mark
I’ve got some thoughts on this over at The Interpreter: http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2008/11/Ozblogosphere.aspx
#40 Darryl, The Times did something similar in book form with “The First Cuckoo” being letters to The Times 1900-1980. An excellent read.Probably not in print however, ISBN 0 04 808040 3. Unwin Paperbacks/Times Books. A history in letters.
M if you are genuine, I am sure you are more than welcome to contribute in those areas you find lacking here.
Please appreciate that here and on other blogs well meaning people do what they can, when they can.
Remember that blogs are an embryonic medium compared to the established MSM, and have nowhere near the resources or staff.
Let’s rather be thankful that fora such as this exist, and do what we can to nuture them to there fullest potential.
Not sure if Crikey entering blogging will enhance or further detract from the individual blog voice approach, though in fairness I’ve found that particular publication is open to contributions.
Lowy is a bit of a disappointment because the lack of commenting means they aren’t linked in to the networking. I like a lot of the institute’s work and listened to a podcast about blogging, which seemed a bit “we’re giving this fangled thing a go”.
I think LP covers a wide enough remit and that if more international relations stuff needs to be written (and in a country where Greg Sheridan is the leading voice on foreign policy, more DOES need to be written) that could also easily be the focus of new blogs, related columns within LP, etc etc. Give me a yell when it happens.
As many of the blogs in the MSM attract bloggers who enjoy endlessly repeating their strongly-held partisan views rather than engaging in a level-headed debate, there is no point in reading them. It’s like standing in a noisy echo chamber. George Megalogenis is one exception – he tries hard to encourage balanced debate and to keep his blogs free of rants. The ‘independent’ blogs are the most informative and interesting, but suffer from inadequate resources. Yet together they present a wide variety of material, opinions and analyses. Some may post only two or three times a week, no doubt because of limited time, but are well worth reading. But checking them each day for interesting content takes time.
So would it be possible for one of these independent blogs, possibly LP, to do a regular, preferably daily, Crikey-style ‘Blog Wrap’ that alerts bloggers to the highlights on the blog sites that are considered worthwhile. This would have a double benefit: it would quickly alert users of the blogosphere to ‘what’s around today’, and it would give little-known blogs with quality comment some airplay. Richard Farmer would know how much time it takes him to do his ‘wrap’.
The Political Sword
I am an overworked RN who would love to be a cultural studies obsessive or even a bored pensioner (self-funded of course, sniff).
I’m a frequent lurker and non-existent poster of LP. I’m very sad that RTS has gone, I for one, enjoyed the passions and the anger (loved your posts nasking), it was a great place to lurk too, especially as people these days are so focused on self-wealth or just self, no-one cares about anything outside of their own existence.
I was still grieving for Blogocracy before the RTS decision and have the greatest admiration and respect for Tim Dunlop (I’ll buy your book Tim, please make it a nasty expose!).
Was wondering if a direct bank deposit or B-PAY type of arrangement would work. I would baulk at giving hundreds of dollars a year when I have so much call upon my money from kids and bills, but I could afford to pay each fortnight $20 or so from my pay to a couple of bloggers to help finance quality indy debate in this country. Are those methods easily set up? Would it be helpful? They say that Barack Obama had people giving small, weekly amounts of money out of their wages to keep funding his campaign.
Rather than hitting people up for one big donation, I believe that smaller, ongoing payments could be a bloggers bread and butter if enough people were committed. I read in one of the newspapers the other day that some people are giving their kids a ridiculous $500 per week for pocket money – where’s that money going? Seems difficult to believe when quality, intelligent knowledge and opinion is dying for lack of investment.
I read in one of the newspapers the other day that some people are giving their kids a ridiculous $500 per week for pocket money – where’s that money going? Seems difficult to believe when quality, intelligent knowledge and opinion is dying for lack of investment.
So much is fundamentally wrong in this country when some can give their kids almost the equivalent of the gross minimum wage as pocket money, yet (perhaps the very same) people resist wage increases for low and semi skilled workers.
Entrenched inequality.
An Onymous Lefty has his say:
http://anonymouslefty.blogspot.com/2008/11/will-last-one-to-leave-please-turn-out.html
This was sorry news indeed.
I think Tim’s right about the need to pay for blogging. I’m certain that the mainstream media doesn’t get it, and I don’t think advertising or sponsorship is a viable option in Australia. But there is hope…
Some good thoughts there, Rob, and good to see an analysis which focuses on the distinctiveness of the development of the Australian political blogosphere. I think you’re right about some of those possibilities – some conversations I’ve had suggest that there may be quite a few people in some of those organisations who are quite receptive to such a model, and can see the value in it.
The challenge for them is letting go of the blog. Letting it be a blog, instead of a PR exercise. To take up the union example, the ACTU dipped a toe during the Rights at Work campaign, but they weren’t prepared to risk a real blog. What they need is something like the old Unions NSW Workers Online, but in blog form.
Kittylitter, thanks for your support and kind words!
Ad Astra, judging by the disappearance of Club Troppo’s Missing Link, and a lot of what was said there about the time it took to put it together, I’d wager that Richard Farmer probably needs a fair bit of time to put his wrap up together, and he has less to choose from than someone trying to do something equivalent for the blogosphere. There are probably some viable options for aggregation and highlighting of blog content, though, which are less labour intensive.
#40
As it happens I had thought the same, but had never mentioned it. You’d beat MUP and their ponderous ‘large-ideas-in-small-books’ hands down. Penguin are issuing old orange lookalikes at $9.95 now. Going back to their roots: affordable books for all. Any takers for LP in book form?
[Hey Lang Mack, we bought that book - excellent.] cheers
Nah, contrary to your post Robert I reckon Tim Blair’s was by far the most important of the Howard-era blogs – it was one of the earliest, and v. influential in a few ways. (He’s nowhere near as significant now that the Aussie blogosophere has burgeoned.) Good ideas about blog sponsorship though.
I’m mainly interested in blogs as a fresh medium; I don’t care too much whether they focus on ‘public issues’, or what have you. Food blogs and humour blogs and music blogs and arts blogs and literature blogs are far more interesting to me. I think it’s far more important to see a proliferation of these general interest blogs, with a variety of funding models; and this will be the base from which to successfully build a ‘public issue’ blog.
Wrt the Missing Link, the best option is probably a “carnival” of the kind that the US blogs regularly run. A group of bloggers agree to host the carnival on their turn. This week/fortnight/month it might be Troppo, next time it’s LP, then Catallaxy, or whatever. Basically, the task of putting together the Missing Link post is spread out through the blogosphere. The downside is the variable quality of the roundup.
Yep, and there’s a good precedent for that in the Oz/NZ blogosphere with the feminist carnival.
TimT – I consider Tim Blair’s to be a US blog, since that was his obsession and his audience. And I think the other Tim did more to develop the Australian blogosphere than Tim Blair, who was focussed on drawing readers to his own site rather than sending them out to others (except in abusive troll-swarms).
I also think that the funding model for a food blog or music blog will necessarily be significantly different (and less problematic) than the funding model for a public affairs/political blog.
I just wanted to observe that this discussion in my view undermines one of Guy Rundle’s points:
Ebooks are a cheaper & smarter way to publish collections. A lot of bloggers have gone this route because it’s cheaper, they can self publish and don’t need to get a bricks and mortar publisher involved.
One example is the Zen Habits productivity blog:
http://zenhabits.net/2007/11/zen-to-done-the-simple-productivity-e-book/
As a reader I also like them because you can buy them online and download them immediately.
Would I buy a book?!! I’ve been declaring my posts as DEST publications for years!
That’s how you get to the dizzy summits of academia, Lefty E? I should have tried harder!
Want career advancement tricks, need LE.
And as I always say Kimski, my work isn’t going to speak for itself, now is it??
:0)
In any case, academic refereeing is never as rigorous as the google-driven interrogations you get here.
C’est vrai, Lefty E!
Lofty views from Keating Towers and dizzy summits of academia. Onwards to the commanding heights of teh economy, citoyens!
Blair also linked and encouraged a number of start-up bloggers in the early years Robert. And his style – divorced from questions of content for the moment – is quite distinctive. For instance, he borrowed the classic short-comment/link idea from American blogs, like Instapundit, but helped it to catch on in the Australian blogosphere.
I am not quite sure why funding for political blogs would be different for funding from other sorts of blogs. Certainly questions of the partisan interests of sponsors, etc, would come into it, but in practice, in other mediums, the funding is the same no matter what is being presented – ie, on the ABC you get gardening shows and kids’ cartoons sitting alongside political analysis. Publishing companies put out political/partisan books alongside of more objective political analysis and fiction, recipe books, etc etc.
Perhaps because blogs are an individualistic medium they might tend to attract questions about partisan/political funding in a way that other more corporatised or communal mediums don’t. But certainly, I don’t on the face of it see why those specialised funding models you suggest on your website shouldn’t be good for both non-political blogs as well.
John Quiggin:
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2008/11/08/a-farewell-to-surfdom/
well there you go, I read my facebook (something I only do once a month or so), found this thread (been on hols so missed it), and disabled adblock for this site. So there, an extra 5c a month or so, I guess. I really don’t need a platinum amex card.