In comments on the post here at LP about John Quiggin’s piece on the “picking up the phone” distinction some have made between journos and bloggers, Jack Strocchi asked:
When have news journos derived their copy off bloggers?
Some people think that the answer is… quite often. I’m with them. Consider this passage here at LP – posted by Mark on Saturday, about the negotiating stances of the government and The Greens and Steve Fielding on the stimulus package’s Senate passage:
I suspect that this manoeuvring might factor more into what comes out of the Budget sausage machine. The government has clearly been shifting its rhetoric on the unemployed, and I would expect the minors to be told that people on benefits will benefit as a result of the Henry Review. So it may be that some commitments might be made for future measures in exchange for current support. That would still, however, give the minor party Senators a real chance to shape the response to the economic downturn.
Then consider this from Michelle Grattan on the same topic, posted on the SMH website last night:
It is also clear the Government will have to review the level of the dole when it looks at pensions in the budget. It is inconceivable it could give pensioners a hefty increase but do nothing for the jobless.The Government has locked itself into action on pensions so it might as well do the same on the dole.
Coincidence? Great minds? Picking up the phone? Some other explanation? You be the judge…
It’s a pretty generic idea, I find it hard to believe that Michelle Grattan is plagiarising LP.
You could always pick up the phone and ask couldn’t you Kim?I’m sure Ms Gratten will give you a completely honest and forthright answer.
@1 – I’m not accusing anyone of plagiarism.
@2 – Heh! Too busy, got to go to work. Amateur and all that…
Send it to MedaWatch.
Two people consider the same situation and come to similar conclusions? Not really seeing the story here.
It’s my honest belief that, on occasion, stories and opinion writers in the media have been influenced substantially by what gets written on LP and other Australian blogs, including things I’ve written. Not often, but it does happen.
That’s fine. But it would be nice to receive the odd acknowledgement when it happens.
Coincidence? Both refer to the need to help the unemployed, Mark’s reference was more convoluted. I really think you are mistaken on this one, any link is extremely vague to say the least.
What a load of self-important tosh.
I agree with Rob. There are numerous occasions when it’s pretty obvious that journos and opinionistas have gone trawling in the blogosphere for an angle or a point (or a phrase).
Evidence please.
Follow the link in the post.
Or perhaps the question should be refoccused on bloggers AND journalists. The slanderyou website is a case study.
I agree with Kim and Rob regarding journos (and sub-editors in some cases from my experience) do trawl the blogosphere for phrases etc.
However in this case I can’t see it. Just two like minds on an issue. Note Gratton’s article likely ran in the Sunday papers so was written sometime Saturday at the very latest.
No I don’t think so, Shaun, it wasn’t there earlier on Sunday. I’m not making any definitive claim about that article in particular – just trying to disrupt the claims about bloggers always being derivative. It’s not the first instance of a blogger picking up on a relevant development before journos get there.
Still less am I making some sort of “arrogant” claim about bloggers being “better” or whatevs. It’s that sort of dumb frame, reversed, which prevents people from seeing what’s in front of their noses. It’s pretty obvious to me that the interchange between the two spheres and what the blogosphere actually does is far less plain than the sorts of stereotypes repeated far too often.
You’ll get no argument from me in trying to disrupt wring ideas about bloggers or your comments regrading interchange between the two spheres. But, as expected, Grattan’s article did appear in Sunday’s print edition of the Sun Herald. Page 46 to be precise.
An invaluable guide to my domains.
But perhaps not so useful in choosing the right thread of destiny.
I’ll just bugger off to the Bad SF thread now, shall I?
I’m with Kim and Rob and Shaun etc. I think there are loads of times when the media have trawled this blog and other prominent Oz blogs for ideas. I don’t know about this case in particular, but give me 12 months and an ARC grant and I could probably find a lot of evidence…
In lame and shame-faced self-defence of bloggers I obviously dont think that what we do is a completely narcissistic and irrelevant waste of time. (Otherwise I wouldnt be doing it myself, right? RIGHT?!)
The more academically qualified bloggers definitely add value by applying scholastic and scientific methods to the loose and intellectually lazy output put out by typically innumerate and fashion-driven journalists. This is a very useful public service when it comes to applying and testing predictive hypotheses about given events.
And, through the agency of comments, we frequently enlist the support and advice of actual players or at least insiders privy to the processes that we pontificate upon and occasionally predict. Or at least rake in a few anecdotes to add local color to the story.
Finally, through the facility of links, archives and updates we can provide a continual, frequently real time, intellectual accountability to our sometimes half-cocked outbursts. Although this requires an unusual degree of intellectual honesty not always found in the ideological partisan.
But bloggers simply dont get out there in the real world enough to dig up stuff on their own to justify the title of primary intellectual producers. Still, secondary intellectual industry is a worthwhile activity, not to be sneered at.
“primary intellectual producers”
But doesn’t virtually all the worthwhile intellectual stuff go on at a secondary level (at least)? Do you mean ‘data gatherers’?
One of the big, huge even, advantages of blogs is their propensity to provide links to original research and articles.
Thats how I get to read a lot of interesting stuff first hand, not the regurgitated through the filter versions of the MSM, and to be fair the blogs as well to a certain extent that is more up front and obvious
And then people can respond back and forth with informed, or otherwise, opinions and more facts some of which are relevant which can add to the discussion significantly, in contrast to the take it or leave approach of journos [well generally anyway].
I unashamedly try not to read MSM journos, except by link from places like here. Every time I buy a Murdoch controlled, or Fairfax, journo output [ a couple of times a year]I swear at myself and make me promise never to waste my time and money again.
I usually only do it for the footy news anyway and even then its when I’ve got time to kill waiting for an appointment of some sort.
@15 – thanks for the correction, Shaun. My impression must have had something to with when they post stuff on Fairfax websites – I thought it was normally in advance of print publication.
Scoops???
Here’s a case in point. Suppose there was a local rumour going around of the arrest of a teenage firebug. Should one blog?
No: i) it’s mere rumour, ii) publication by MSM may have been warned against by police, because (for example) the investigation is continuing and they’d like to watch devlopments quietly, iii) it’s nothing more than rumour, iv) it’s a dull factoid and almost meaningless, v) it could lead to unwelcome attention from MSM reporters, ravening hyenas that they are, vi) it’s mere hearsay
So, does the blogger race into print to be “frist”? I trust not.
“Follow the link in the post.”
Have. Still can’t find any evidence that the media swipe ideas/quotes from this blog. And nobody here seems interested in actually backing up what they say.
What nonsense. Two people can independently come to the same conclusion. I can’t even understand the paragraph at the top, and I’ve read through it twice. The last sentence doesn’t seem to fit. And what’s the ‘sausage machine’? Are budgets somehow homogeneous? Or is it a reference to ‘salami slicing”? Might need to work on this a little before deciding you’ve overtaken Grattan.
@24 – mick made the point – we don’t keep a database or something. If the time and the software were there it would be possible to demonstrate it. You can hold whatever view you like, but all we’re doing is pointing to a common perception on the part of bloggers. And we can actually demonstrate – in the case of the Beazley analogy – something that is far from obvious was first pointed out here.
Indeed, but isn’t the nature of the Canberra press gallery to repeat the same thing via multiple voices? It’s touching the faith some people seem to have in the superiority of the journo. What’s so outrageous about suggesting that part of the pack mentality and writing by google efforts of highly paid “professionals” might include scouring the blogosphere? I’ll repeat – the point of this post is not to claim some reverse superiority.
Ever heard of Bismarck and his comments about how legislation is put together? It’s a very well known phrase for the legislative process among people who know something about politics.
Well I can think of 2 examples where stuff that started in a blog ended up in the MSM.
I thought I posted one of them before but it seems to have disappeared.
Possums pre election pseph analysis was cited, with appropriated attribution, by someone.
Hows that for precision? .
And remember the Leader of the Opposition in WA who was accused of something or other very vague about quokkas that got into the media, to the shame of both the blogger and the media?
Ok two swallows does not a summer make.
Yeah, whether or not this example is a case of it, I hear ya, Kim… but I don’t think anyone other than other bloggers would really “get it”, and we come across like sour grapes! What a brutal world is blogging, huh?! It’s hard, I don’t have the problem anymore from my current blog, but I certainly experienced it on eobb, and it’s hard to fight the feeling of being ripped off, it hits you. Especially when they’re making money for it, and you’re sitting there doing it for nothing. It’s an understandably unpleasant sensation! I just calmed myself down and thought, “Well, Aaron, this means that it’s getting out there and what you’re saying and doing is effective”. I took it as a compliment because, really, it’s all you can do, in the end.
Exactly, Eye!