Many newspapers put out a "best of the year" compendium, a book usually released just in time for the Christmas market. So it is a mark of the growing maturity of the blogosphere that this year the British component has its first such compilation, 2005: Blogged. Edited by Tim Worstall, of the eponymous blog, it covers from November 2004 to October this year, an eventful enough period that covers the US election, the London bombings and even a royal wedding.
So how does it stack up? Is the best of the British blogosphere starting to seriously rival the traditional media outlets in quality of information, analysis and writing? I decided to put 2005: Blogged to the test, and a tough test, comparing it to The Bedside Years: The Best Writing from the Guardian 1951-2000.
There are some areas in which, you might be surprised to hear, the blogosphere wins out - offers something the Guardian compilation does not.
The blogosphere doesn't in general, have to worry about offending "the general public" - at least not any part of it that might by a particular newspaper. The preparedness to offend and not care, gives the blogosphere an edge over newspapers in the areas of satire and scathing comment. On the royal wedding, Mugged by Reality's headline is: "Embarrassing, irrelevant, inbred, half-witted Greco-Germanic anachronism to wed hideous, overprivileged, idle-rich moose." Even Julie Burchill might have trouble getting that past an editor.
Then there's a particular segment of the blogosphere that gives insider views you'd be unlikely to find in a newspaper; these are not journalists or public figures, but people, often after decades in a field of business, who can bluntly talk about what it is _really_ like. So, Grumpy Old Bookman explains how winning the Man Booker Prize is absurd, random, and utterly unfair. I doubt you'd ever see this article in a newspaper; editors have too much invested in being part of the literary world to so expose it.
Some of the these bloggers are, like the Bookman, semi-retired; others are deeply pseudonymous, and talk about their day job with rare honesty, such as the magistrate who writes The Law West of Ealing Broadway. There's a particularly fine post in the compilation in which he writes what he'd really like to say to some defendants: "Look, you stupid git. If you had been weating the [seat]belt the police would have left you alone. There is no specific offence of acting like a prat, but if there were you would be guilty of it."
Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
It's interesting to note that the first few examples you gave are very negative; exactly what people say is what's wrong with newspapers / media.
I'd buy this book though. But I'll get a friend in Britain to buy and send it over. He needs the excuse.
2 - Natalie Bennett
Interesting, Temple, I hadn't thought about it that way. I guess I think really people aren't so concerned about newspapers being negative per say, just being negative in unbalanced, detached-from-reality kind of ways. (I'm thinking about huge fusses about violence etc that aren't born out by the actual degree of risk.)
3 - Antoine Clarke
You write:
"Antoine Clarke's Election Watch (no longer up) dissects the (unintended) consequences of the Guardian's campaign on Clark County."
You will find the Election Watch alive and well on:antoineclarke.blogspot.com
The url for the article included in 2005: Blogged is
Was It The Guardian Wot Won It For Bush
ttfn
4 - Natalie Bennett
Apologies - can't understand how I couldn't find it. But I will now correct this on my home blog.