Political Influence of Bloggers - 5 comments

Just to put your mind at rest, I affirm that I will never post about the political influence of bloggers ever again, and neither their influence on the mainstream media (sorry, "dead trees"), nor what the mainstream media can learn from bloggers.

I will also abstain from claiming to be a journalist - especially a "citizen journalist" - and a media commentator. Unless the price is extraordinarily right.

The craft of a journalist is just not something I aspire to. As long as the truth is exposed by somebody, and corruption and dishonesty is exposed wherever it lies (not merely to further one's own political cause - something that obviously couldn't possibly happen in the aggregate), that's the main thing.

Another crime to be punished by my summary execution is the citing of blogging hit counts as an indicator of the value of a particular blog, especially compared to the readership of daily newspapers.

Last but by no means least, I will never, never, not even under pain of death, comment on the issue of whether the British blogosphere (that is a buzzword I will continue to use, however) is "years behind" the USA. It may be a bind at first, but you'll learn to live, dear blog reader, without ever thinking about the relative states of advancement of the various national blogospheres.

The smarter reader will no doubt be thinking, "Hang on, you hardly post anything anyway, what's the big deal?" You've got a point there, but I won't always be this quiet (maybe I'm suffering from this? Via).

Inspired by Iain, and many, many others.

P.S. If you're feeling satirical, feel free to write in with your pet hates about blog coverage, either from within the blogging world, or from outside.

Update: didn't realise/forgot that several others were posting on this theme, around the same time and before - Tom has a roundup.