BBC political correspondent Andrew Marr is in the news himself today for describing bloggers as 'socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy young men' who give journalism a bad name.
Speaking at the Cheltenham Literary Festival, Marr said: "A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother's basements and ranting. They are very angry people.".
Er, hello?
I'm not sure what sites Marr has been visiting, but Mashable, noted authority on social media, tells us the majority of bloggers are women.
There are a few "angry" sites: for example, http://ihateryanair.co.uk/ is also in the news today, which is a good example, but sites like these are usually doing a good job. Power to the people! Companies, utilities and politicians can't get away with anything lilke they used to, because of the vigilance of pesky spotty people on the web.
Of course Marr is approaching this from a defensive stand point. Does blogging present a challenge to newspapers and TV news over the next few years?
Undoubtedly yes, in terms of speed of breaking news. No TV station or news agency can respond as fast as Twitter, as we have seen with recent major stories. Nearly everyone has a camera phone, therefore we can all make and share news as it happens.
But blogs and online media present news in small chunks, and I believe that paper copies of newspapers will still thrive because people want their analysis and comment.
In the meantime, I suggest Mr Marr visits some of the blogs in my blog roll to see that some of the content is written by entirely sane people with perfectly good complexions, and none of us living with our mothers.
1 comment
That statement shows how out of touch he is with the blogging world.
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