Monday 21 June 2010

@tomharrismp - talking out of his arse

Again:

But blogs are, on the whole, amateur affairs, offering plenty of subjective opinion and the occasional interesting fact, spun in a particular direction. The USP of any newspaper worth the name is journalism.


That’s why I read the Daily Mirror: straight-up factual journalism with not a hint of party bias.

Plus, of course, 95% of a newspaper’s content isn’t just regurgitated Associated Press or Reuters stuff.

Yes, Tom, you’re bang on the money here.

As ever.

5 comments:

The Grim Reaper said...

His whole piece screams out "Newspaper editors everywhere, I'm available to write for you!", doesn't it?

What a bellend.

Mahesh said...

I'm considering to stop reading two blogs that I normally read every day.

Tom and Iain Dale.

Tom has started to bitch about everything suddenly when he kept his trap shut when Labour was in govt.

Iain, who bitched about everything, has suddenly has nothing but praise. You rape a 15 year old? Ohh, you are a Tory. Poor you. Not your fault, this is not a big issue for you to resign, this is just a unfortunate thing.

Tim Almond said...

The trouble with the "amateurs" line is that it ignores the fact that amateurs are often far more passionate about the subjects than the professionals are.

It's why columnist stuff feels like reading kindergarten journalism now, with the grown up stuff coming from blogs, because bloggers often know about EU legislation or how the legislature, economics, technology or whatever actually work.

SimonLeRosbif said...

The "Professional" writes for the editor so that he gets paid. i.e. Write insincerely, get paid

The "Amateur" writes for himself so that he gets read. i.e. Write insincerely, get lost.

On that score how can one side with the former.

And Mahesh? Seconded.

Pogo said...

The main point that he misses is that "amateur" bloggers are sometimes highly-skilled professionals in the subjects about which they blog.

"Professional" jornalists are almost always (especially in science, medicine, technology) rank amateurs in the subjects about which they regurgitate press-releases.

For example, when it comes to statistical analysis, Who would you consider authoritative, Roger Harrabin or Steve McIntyre?