A couple of days ago I drew your attention to a seminar to launch a report by Editorial Intelligence called “The Power of the Commentariat”. Or rather, they have launched half of it and expect the public to buy the rest from Amazon.

It’s an interesting document and I’d like to do a review of the whole thing. I have asked Editorial Intelligence for a review copy of the whole document. If one is not forthcoming, I shall review the half of the report that they have seen fit to release.

Listening to the podcast of the seminar, there are a number of moments of “Don Quixote” incongruity. However, if you want to skip the fun, and just hear what I think - then go to the next section.

The Emperor with no clothes gives advice on dress sense

Golly, Polly!

Polly Toynbee whinged complained about bloggers launching “vituperative” and “personal” attacks on her. Perhaps she thought noone had read her vituperative and personal attacks on numerous targets.

Has anyone read Polly on Boris these last few weeks, or Polly on the Archishop of Canterbury six months ago, or on any number of different people at different times?

That’s why she’s such good value for bloggers. If she didn’t exist, we’d have to invent her.

Charles “how dare you intrude into my private life” Clarke

Charles Clarke complaining about doorstepping by journalists.

This is a politician in a cabinet which passed all manner of unnecessary restrictions on liberty from the right to demonstrate, through DNA profiling of the innocent with no effective redress, via compliance with Extraordinary Rendition, to an Extradition Treaty allowing British Citizens to be yanked out of their daily lives by foreign judges to face trial in the United States on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.

Forgive me, Mr Clarke, if my sympathy for you is limited.

Again, Charles Clarke on the unfairness of anonymously expressed views

Charles Clarke complaining about anyone putting forward a viewpoint anonymously.

Er, sorry, Mr Clarke - but I thought that anonymous briefings (and bullying) were used relentlessly by the New Labour administration (of which you were a key part) as a tool for media manipulation.

What do they think of bloggers?

Quite a lot of ill-informed nonsense, but some people “Get it” (Danny Finkelstein and others) or nearly get it (Julia Hobsbawm among them).

Bloggers are dreadful horrible nasty vindictive followers of Guido Fawkes

Columnists are specifically described as being of “different types”, but bloggers are apparently all the same and we are all “followers” of Guido Fawkes (wonder what Professor Norm, Tim Ireland, Natalie and The F-Word would say about that).

And, regardless of the vitriol poured on him, Guido has done some superb work - my favourite is the the exposure of Peter Hain’s attempt to drive a double decker bendybus through the rules and principles supposed to govern elections in his own party.

He had also entertained us from time to time by getting the things hilariously wrong from time to time (one word: Newsnight).

Bloggers are all the same

A very, very funny comment.

Anybody who says that has not mastered their brief to comment on bloggers. It has a “whole class of Japanese students out on bicycles in Cambridge for the first time going the wrong way round a traffic island, knowing they are wrong but being too scared to go back” feel about it (ack. Bishop of Maidstone). I’d suggest working harder and getting out more.

Bloggers are Masculine

This was a statement from Julia Hobsbawm in the closing conversation. Certainly most are, but there is no male monopoly - even in politics.

My thoughts?

The Commentariat (as represented in this podcast) seem to be having a few problems getting to grips with the blogging medium - in particular coping with the diversity.

How can they cope with the plethora of blogs? Have they “got to read” all of this? (yes you do - at least enough of it enough times to develop a familiarity sufficient to make a sensible judgement).

The Internet is stuffed with automatic tools to help you get to grips with the flow of comment, including aggregators, specialised search engines (www.technorati.com, Google news and blog search), and services to try and judge what is important (www.technorati.com again, www.wikio.com).

The UK Political Blogosphere is also heavily summarised if you know where to look. How many columnists heave heard of the Britblog Roundup, the Scottish Roundup, the Welsh Blog Index, Cassilis’s roundup of think tanks, and the numerous other “signposts” that are published every week? Hopefully at least some know about these various “roundups”.

If they aren’t familiar with these tools then - again - it’s a matter of getting out more and working at it a bit. That’s not exactly difficult.

And I haven’t even mentioned RSS and RSS Readers (Google Reader, Feed Demon to name one online and one offline reader).

Even Danny Finkelstein - who writes a fantastic blog at Comment Central - quoted the “Cover it Live” chatroom service (btw, Danny, it IS moderated) as potentially useful. The fact is that chatrooms have existed for years and years and years; when I was diagnosed with Diabetes a regular chatroom meetup was one way I learnt to cope - that was in 2001, and they were old then. The problem here is mainly that there has been too much conservatism to use them appropriately. There are dozens of tools out there - sites just need the minimal knowledge to use them and the willingness to take a slight risk as to what will happen.

if I was a struggling columnist floundering in a sea of blog comment, I would make a point of taking Jemima Kiss or Chris Vallance (or me!) out for a long, expensive lunch to quiz them on how to read blogs the easy way.

Wrapping Up

Guido and Iain have commented on the Power of the Commentariat “do”.

And Guido is making a feature of holding columnists to account. A good idea, but it needs more than just him.

Iain has commented more sympathetically on the report itself.

In the meantime you can listen to the podcast here, and download half the report here.

Editorial Intelligence’s service was quoted as an example of a site helping people get to grips with online comment. I disagree - it is expensively paid for and therefore helps maintain an “in-crowd”.

I’m wondering if the Editorial Intelligence Model is now way past it’s sell by date - given that summaries of most of the stuff written by commentators and columnists is now syndicated via RSS. I wonder whether MySociety could build us something better for the whole world - not just those who can afford the subscriptions - to use if someone gave them £5k and a month.

The thing that the Commentariat actually need to do is to shatter their “bubble on a pedestal” from the inside before it gets shattered for them from the outside.

I’ll follow this article with a review of the full report, or half the report - depending on what is made available to me.

You can get the first half at the link above, and the second half of The Power of the Commentariat for a charge of £20.

And a slight apology - I have not linked absolutely everything in this article as I am away from home.