I know Michael Gove is a very clever man and a good writer, but he should realise that not everyone is gifted in the same way. His column in today’s Times is harsh on those that don’t meet his literary standards.
I share Michael’s admiration of Iain’s blog, and have yet to spend time on Daniel Finklesteins new site which Michael also applauds. I also like the the idea behind The Author’s Commonplace Book which he refers to, making a compilation of interesting pieces of prose, a miscellany of different amusing observations. He believes blogs should follow this mantra and is scathing about those that don’t:
“While the original weblogger was meant to have the skills of a great commonplace book editor, most blogs, it has to be admitted, are scarcely edited and just plain commonplace. Increasingly, blogs have become just the logs of what people happen to have done that day, unadorned diary entries, placed on the web. So many bloggers have become little more than electronic Adrian Moles or 21st-century Pooters, inclined to imagine that the minutiae of their daily lives is intrinsically interesting because it’s posted on the net.
“The internet may be more immediate than traditional publishing, and more democratic in the ease with which anyone can carve space out for their work, but ultimately the same imperatives imply on the web as in Waterstone’s — sooner or later quality will out.”
That sounds a little harsh to me. I believe everyone should be entitled to have their own site and write what they like in their own style. It is personal to them, and the more Adrian Moles the better, particularly if it encourages more young people to write and enables people to let off steam. What might not interest you Michael, is probably fascinating to someone else. And most bloggers don’t want to be published by Waterstone’s.
Michael does not mention the importance of interaction between bloggers who post comments, this is the vital lifeline of a successful site. The ranters and the wits, as well as the authoritive voices, can share their views and see them published, providing endless amusement. Without them, a blog would be an empty vessel, but nevertheless, still important to its creator.
So Michael, please don’t be so harsh on bloggers that don’t meet your personal literary standards. While I agree that some tittle-tattle is more interesting than others, there are lots more sites you might enjoy if you travelled out of your normal comfort zone, here are a few new ones I recently discovered.
Well said, Ellee. I don’t believe in uneccesary insults but in Michael ‘fish-face’ Gove’s case I’ll make an exception.
I quite agree with you Ellee, I have a blog which is just my place to sound off a little on the big, small and meaningless issues of the day. Just the stories and thoughts that have caught my attention. I enjoy when I get visitors and comments but I know that my daily hit rate is pitifully small. I don’t care – it’s just my own little space.
I think Michael Gove is correct when he says that many people won’t be interested in my day to day thoughts. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We don’t all have to be interested in what everyone says. Frankly, I’m not particularly interested in his thoughts on most issues so don’t buy his newspaper or visit his blog.
There is a place for the great intellectual discourse of the traditional media, but also for the low-level gossip that many blogs offer.
Paul Graham wrote a piece that covered something about the following statement:-
most blogs, it has to be admitted, are scarcely edited and just plain commonplace.
I’m paraphrasing Paul as I can’t find his original essay but the bottom line is that journalists aren’t competing with “most blogs”, they’re competing with the best of the blogs. I know of one story in my own field where the bloggers coverage was far superior (and was referenced by the judge in the legal case).
Just because there are a million blogs talking about kittens and Deep Space 9 episodes doesn’t mean that there aren’t those like Tim Worstall, Guido, Iain et al that are writing something of worth.
I have to say that I took Micahel Gove’s point a slightly different way. There are, many, what people might call blogs, out there that are tediously annoying. I;m not talking about Blogger and WordPress per se but more some of the one from the slightly more old skool of the 28.8kpbs modem days of the Internet. Places like LiveJournal for example. Another really good example fot he sort of thing I think of when I read Michael Gove’s article was places like SuicideGirls.com (note it is girl but they are not (officially) suicidal, I make no guarantees that the site will work-safe either).
I do admit though that as someone who first went online in 1992 I effectively a “grumpy odl man” in Internet years, I don’t know about Gove> He metnioned the first “weblogger” but arguably that would’ve been the first website with daily updates and beleive me, there was some s**t back in the early 1990s just as there is today.
It’s the same point made by CIPR director general Colin Farrington: most blogs aren’t literature, so they’re not worth reading.
But blogs are worth reading precisely because they’re not literature, or edited journalism, or coporate public relations. At best they’re the authentic voices of real people having a rant or a conversation (as you say).
Politicians and PR practitioners shouldn’t be so scornful of ‘the public’.
I must say that I rather like reading Michael Gove. On this issue, however, I think he is wrong on this issue.
Where does Michael Gove get his ideas as to what skills ‘the original weblogger’ was meant to have? Someone enlighten me?
He says that many bloggers ‘imagine that the minutiae of their daily lives is intrinsically interesting because it’s posted on the net’. Possibly, but he fails to realise that the internet is no more than another medium of communication. People use it in much the same way was they use their mobile phones and other means of communication, etc. In any case, many newspaper columnists are guilty of the same crime. (Examples: The Times, 2 August 2006, there is an article by one Michael Gove telling us about his hypochondria. Of course, it is written as a serious piece, and no doubt, he may consider that his is a more worthy article than if written by a mere blogger)
Michael Gove appears to have a sort of ‘reverence’ for the internet that you would not expect to find from someone living in this computer age. So he only wants to see worthy stuff on the internet? Like what? Well reasoned political arguments, academic discussions, great poetry, I am thinking. All those things exist on the internet, no doubt. But the internet is for everybody. Anyone who has something to say can come say it here.
He is obviously nostalgic for those days when you could only publish a book if a publishing house accepted your manuscript (hurrah today for internet publishing and all such things). As a journalist used to having his own lofty platform, he rankles at the thought of sharing space with bloggers who may not be as ‘deserving’ of being listened to as he no doubt thinks he is. Could he perhaps feel threatened?
I know there are some pretty dire blogs out there, but no-one need read them unless they want to. In the same way, there are some dire newspapers out there with lousy journalists. No one need buy them.
He seems to want to establish some sort of superiority. So anyone can set up a blog, but only a select few can actually get a book published? We already knew that, Mr Gove. Thing is, the internet is demotic in its appeal, and everyone can use it as they see fit.
Many people are getting fed up with the way the newspapers package the news. Most times, it is laced through with biased commentary. Stories are not reported if they do not sit with the newspaper’s aims, etc. For too long, the public have just had to ‘take what they were given’ in respect of news dissemination. Not anymore. Bloggers have seized the initiative. Some people now turn to blogs for their early morning news, and then to the online editions of the newspapers to pick and choose the stories they want to read. No wonder journalists are popping up everywhere, attacking bloggers.
He says that ‘quality will out’. In this he is right. Quality will indeed out. As for journalists in the print media taking pot shots at bloggers, why? Do they fear competition? If so, they shouldn’t worry. If Michael Gove is as ‘quality’ as he thinks he is, then he shouldn’t fear the illiterate bloggers.
Please excuse this illiterate blogger.
In the first paragraph of my above post, kindly disregard the words ‘on this issue’ where it appears the second time.
Michael Gove should approve. 🙂
From the sound of it, we carry on doing our own thing and enjoying it.
For the record, I am far more illiterate than you so ther [sic]
The trouble is that Michael, like many others, has not really understood what a blog is about. It is NOT an online diary, recording the minutiae of the bloggers life. It is supposed to be a signpost to items on the web that the blogger found interesting, or comments on the events, linked to other webistes, that the blogger has a view on.
Kevin, let’s hope Michael reads these comments and gets a better idea about what blogging is all about.
You are right, Ellee. Now we have a vehicle whereby everyone can have their say and that is so important. Who knows? Perhaps, one day in the far-distant future, wars and terrorism will be avoided because people will be able to get their point across to millions via this medium.
And young people are writing and reading again, as you say. “Ordinary lives” are interesting to people because no life is truly “ordinary”, is it?
I am a book-lover but I am sure blogging is going to transform publishing.
Well said, Ellee. Blogs are wonderful creations which reflect slices of our lives, or allows our creativity to run riot. Michael Gove is clearly uniformed, and has not scanned many blogs.
I followed the link to his article, but it was too wordy and took too long to get his message across. Perhaps he’d do better with a mobile phone and only 256 characters ? He’s entitled to his opinion – its just to long winded to read.
If anyone fancies a giggle at the Govemeister’s expense, call in at your nearest remainder bookshop and marvel at the piles of his Portillo biography, famous for missing out on /that/ story….
I love the way Gove thinks he knows what blogs are supposed to be. I haven’t got a clue and mine seems to be fairly successful. (pcbloggs.blogspot.com) Shame I’m only a dumb woman police officer… what would I know about the commonplace man?
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