Here is one good reason why “Smeargate will run, and run…
Just wait till Iain gets his response for FOI information about whether a smear campaign was also being planned against him.
This is what he wrote on his blog a few days ago:
“Two weeks ago, on 27 March, I wrote THIS post in which I outlined my suspicions that Damian McBride, Gordon Brown’s chief political, advisor had sent emails to Derek Draper in early February encouraging a smear campaign against me. I then submitted a Freedom of Information and DPA request to the Cabinet Office asking for details of any information they held on me and for details of any emails sent by Mr McBride relating to me. That FOI Request has been acknowledged by the Cabinet Office and is being processed.”
Why is Labour so scared of bloggers?
This will indeed be messy. While Gordon Brown would like to sweep it under the carpet, it will be around like Watergate was.
The world is moving on and newspapers are finding it hard to deal with the change in the new media order. Clearly few people make money out of blogging (in of itself) and it will be interesting to see what happens as newspaper revenue continues to fall.
As a writer of book I am constantly being reminded that there is a change a coming with e-readers set to dominate the world (possibly). Is publishing trying to deal with this? Well yes, and no. It deals with it by wanting to bolt on its existing distribution model to the new digital books. It won’t work. Newspapers need to throw out the old model and get some creativity into designing something new and exciting. It’s not the blogosphere that’s the problem it’s that the world of digital media is so far ahead that nothing will ever be the same again.
The same applies to politics. It’s not that blogging is such a potent weapon (with very few exceptions). But it does give a voice to the voiceless, people can rant, rave, pontificate and whatever else and somewhere along the way people feel empowered. It sure beats writing letters to the newspapers which may or many not get printed, with or without some pretty heavy-handed editing.
Bob Dylan was right. . .
I can’t get into Guido’s blog today – has it been closed down?
Richard, well said. I agree that we are in a new media era.
WW, it was probably heavy traffic at Guido’s site. His site stats must be astronomical. It’s ok now.
The issues Richard refers to apply equally to the RIAA, BPI, Sony BMG, EMI and co as well. Instead of trying to kill off the opposition whether legitimate or not they should innovate and adapt if they want to continue in business. A number of artists, such as Coldplay and Radiohead along with many less well known names, are embracing the web and digital media transmission very well indeed. Bullying people, whether artist or opposition, will only get you so far (usually in a backwards direction).