Danny Whatmough.com

A few months back, I blogged about how writer Paul Carr had been sacked by the Guardian due to freelancer budget cuts. At the time, I said:

“…it is yet another indictment of the decline of ‘traditional media’ and the power and rise of bloggers and media ‘personalities’ who don’t need a publishing house behind them to be successful. And that’s great for people like Carr. It’s harder though for less forthright journalists.”

And I was right. Carr is still writing his next book, publishing on his blog and has since secured two new columns. One with pro-blog Techcrunch and the other with the Telegraph.

The latter always seemed a weird fit, but it was good to see the Telegraph taking a few more risks (which it certainly was with Carr!). But then yesterday Carr announced – surprise, surprise – that the Telegraph has terminated his contract. The reason given by his boss:

“I’ve been looking at the latest traffic figures for your blog and also our budget and how we’re spending it. And I’m afraid I’ve reached the conclusion that your time blogging with us should come to an end… Our limited budget just cannot sustain these sums without a bigger bang for our buck.”

You can read the rest of Carr’s post to get his full (and colourful) reaction to his sacking. But it’s the reason given that is interesting to me. As Carr says:

“I short, I wasn’t driving enough pageviews to justify what they were paying me.”

Should we be surprised that this is potentially all that seems to matter for journalism now? Should we be concerned? These are after all commercial companies, with commercial concerns.

Perhaps this is why, for me, ‘personal’ blogging is becoming so important. By this I don’t mean Techcrunch or even Paul Carr. I mean the thousands that blog every now and then, even the millions that post on microblogs like Twitter. Those that share their thoughts and ideas.

They aren’t driven by page views or sensationalist headlines.  They aren’t ruled by the ‘media agenda’ or corporate, PR-speak.

This is why the democratisation of media is so important, especially considering the way more and more professional media outlets seem to be going. I hope the professional media stays strong and survives, I think it is vital. But I’m excited by the new brand of journalism just as much.

Does the sight of hundreds of pages of comments on an article fill you with dread? Do you get fed up of reading the same comment again and again and again?

I read an interesting article today on TechCrunch by Nicolas Holzapfel. Nicholas claims that comment sections have become unruly and rarely add anything particularly constructive to an article because of the way they are structured:

“Lots of comments amounts to an enormous long list of entirely unstructured text. There are no dividers or subheadings, no logical progression of arguments or groupings of opinion and no distinction between unique, intelligent insights and throwaway expressions of approval and opposition. Because nobody can be bothered to read through such a mess before they add their own comment, there isn’t even the structure of a coherent conversation. Instead, there is endless, pointless repetition; conversations emerge, peter out and then re-emerge 50 comments later with new participants who haven’t noticed that the same issues were discussed 50 comments ago.” (his emphasis)

And I largely agree with this. When you get mainstream articles with lots of comments, I will instinctively read the first few and then skim the rest. I will rarely go onto a second page and never to a third.

So what is the answer?

From the looks of things, Nicholas clearly believes that his startup – Yoomoot – will provide the solution, but it is hard to tell from the website exactly how or why!

I’m a fan of Disqus (used on this blog) and the service mentioned in the article – Echo, a real-time comment engine – also looks interesting. However, neither service really solves the specific problem Nicholas highlights.

Should comments be subjected to more editorial control? Should there be more social or Digg-style elements where visitors can vote up popular comments (the BBC website does this, for example)? Perhaps the eagerly anticipated Google Wave will help with more ‘Wiki’-like technology allowing visitors to manage and control comment sections in a more democratic way.

Surely this is an aspect of blogging that is ripe for innovation and fresh thinking?

There’s lots of digital news going on today and so it would be easy to miss a blogging story that should really be given more attention. The Times has reported that it has won a landmark verdict in the High Court allowing the paper to reveal the identity of police-blogger NightJack.

The verdict has forced the blogger to close the site and delete the content.

The NightJack blog describes described, worts and all, on-the-beat policing, featuring some stinging attacks on the organisation and the government. But it was the insights into everyday policing that lead the blog and the blogger to be awarded an Orwell Prize in April. As a Guardian editorial put it:

“This is life as the police see it. Read it, even if only to disagree.”

Well, disagree The Times did and reporting on the case it disclosed:

“In the first case dealing with the privacy of internet bloggers, the judge ruled that Mr xx had no “reasonable expectation” to anonymity because “blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity”.”

Blogger Zoe Margolis who was also unmasked by the same newspaper blogs:

“There will be others, of course, who’ll applaud this judge’s ruling for upholding “freedom of information” and “openness and transparency” for the “public interest” stories covered by journalists.  But those of us who have chosen to be anonymous online, have done so with good reason; so after losing my own anonymity, and experiencing first hand the ruthless behaviour of some elements of the press, I will continue to fight for the right of other bloggers to keep their identity hidden.”

For some anonymity empowers them to say and expose things they might not otherwise say or expose, as Jemima Kiss states, “there are occasions when anonymity is a powerful and necessary tool and a right that protects whistleblowers and brings important issues to light. A blanket ruling that disregards that right is very bad news indeed.”

I’m not au fait with the political and legal ranglings of the case but I do know that at a time when bloggers are exposing great injustices in the world, it is sometimes necessary to write behind a veil in order to reveal what is really happening.

These haven’t been good days for Iran and, though not nearly on the same scale, it hasn’t been a good 24 hours for CNN either.

The hashtag #CNNfail is currently reverberating around the Twittersphere as the Twitterati show their disgust for CNN’s seeming inability to give coverage to the goings on in the Middle East and, in particular, the protests occurring following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory.

As Readwriteweb reported last night:

“Hours after Iranian police began clashing with tens of thousands of people in the street, the top story on CNN.com remains peoples’ confusion about the switch from analog TV signals.”

This does seem bizarre, especially for a broadcaster that seemingly prides itself on its social media savvy and numerous Twitter accounts including CNN breaking news.

Cnet agrees:

“One would think, then, that when the idea began to percolate around Twitter that CNN was missing out on a major, historical story like the one developing in Iran, the network would have noted the discontent and done something about it.”

If nothing else (and surely just a mishap or oversight by the broadcaster) it is a sign that democratised media can hold traditional media to account in a very loud and forceful way.

The whole situation in Iran is too a sign of how social media is becoming a powerful force, even in places that don’t enjoy the same freedom of information that we often take for granted.

Mousavi’s own Twitter feed has been an important tool for him to communicate to an underground movement and it will be interesting to see how this develops in the days and weeks ahead.

As the New York Times reports, social media and the technology that underpins it are a vital lifeblood for many in Iran, but one that is now under severe threat:

“The text messaging that is the nervous system of the opposition was shut down, along with universities, Web sites and newspapers the government regarded as hostile. Mr. Moussavi was not allowed a platform on Saturday and barely managed to get out a communiqué calling the election ‘a magic show.’”

We can only hope that Iran’s army of bloggers and Twitterers can continue to have their say. Social media is providing a powerful and compelling real-time feed of the latest incidents and events that, with or without the help of traditional media, will be heard.

IRAN: A Nation Of Bloggers from ayrakus on Vimeo.

This weekend, I’ve upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.8 and it was sooo easy! With 2.7 came the ability to update to new versions automatically within the Wordpress dashboard. Therefore, no need to worry about fiddling around with FTP logins and complex file revisions. One click and all done within 5 seconds!

I’m a huge fan of Wordpress. It’s the platform I use for every blog I look after including the Wildfire one.

And version 2.8 has some interesting updates including:

- It’s faster

- New theme updater

- New widgets dashboard

- New screen options on the top right of every page

You can get a good run-through of these in this video (nice Jazz theme tune as well!):

And if you were still unsure why Wordpress really is the best out there, here are my top ten reasons:

1. Easy to install, easy to update – from 2.7 you can do more or less everything within the dashboard

2. Themes – lots of templates to use – you can even design your own

3. Widgets – easy to update side bars and footers (new and improved with 2.8)

4. Plugins – with the Wordpress API there are a multitude of 3rd party plugins allowing you to do almost anything! [this feature alone makes it a winner!]

5. Wordpress.com – if you don’t want to host a blog yourself, this is the option for you

6. Total control with Wordpress.org – if hosting doesn’t put you off, then you get much more for your buck

7. Fantastic UI – the new dashboard (from 2.7) is slick, easy to use and powerful

8. Edit themes and plugins within the dashboard – no need to use FTP or an HTML editor [editing plugins is new with 2.8]

9. The community – Wordpress has millions of users, many of whom are ready and willing to lend a hand when things go wrong

10. It’s free!

Wanted to flag this post I’ve written on the Wildfire blog looking at some recent shocking blogger outreach (if it can be called that) from our favourite no-frills-but-pay-double-for-everything-else airline, Ryanair.

picture credit