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The Media Gap
The MSM doesn't do blogs; Iranian bloggers face crackdown - who's next?; Hillary Clinton, Virtual President?
The Guardian reports that left-leaning rival The Independent is seeking voluntary redundancies from among its reporting staff. The newspaper, which along with its sister paper the Independent on Sunday lost £10m in 2005, faces a struggle to adapt to the new media world.
The Guardian's media commentator Roy Greenslade argues that the Indie's real problems are online.
If it wasn't for owners willing to sustain a 10million annual loss, the newspaper wouldn't be here, he says. But the paper had the option of building a better online offering: The Indie's website is useless, suggesting that its owners and directors don't understand the importance of digital editions and rolling news agendas.
Adapt or die, it seems. But how well do other papers match up? The Guardian has a successful online presence, and has made a huge investment in its Comment Is Free talkback section. The Times is looking into MySpace link ups and has a late-blooming visionary proprietor in Rupert Murdoch, who recently grasped the significance of online news. The Telegraph has just moved into a new office built around a multimedia hub network, designed to produce the media product (not only the newspaper) of the future.
All the above have blogs (except the Independent). But look at the bloggers... with the exception of a few irregular "Guest Bloggers" on Comment Is Free, they're all hacks. Sure, Comment Is Free carries opinion pieces from Guardian-friendly academics, novelists and politicians, but these aren't blog posts: By and large, their posts are by journalists, given the freedom to meander a little on their pet subjects.
EURSOC is a great fan of some of these blogging reporters: The Times' Charles Bremner is excellent on Paris and France, while academic Mary Beard's posts on ancient Roman and Greek culture never fail to fascinate.
But where are the real bloggers? If the newspapers were serious about blogging, what's to stop them asking some of Britain's leading bloggers to publish daily comments there (and not just the odd 'guest post'?)
Journalists just can't do the relentless combination of rage, warped humour and fanatical attention that makes blogs so appealling. As often as not, blogging journalists remind us of embarrassing uncles disco dancing at teenage parties.
Big in Iran
From the BBC comes news that the Iranian authorities have signalled to bloggers that they must register their blogs (and presumably reveal their identities while doing so) or face closure.
More evidence that oppressive regimes fear the Internet more than they fear military action or international sanction. Europeans will be horrified to hear of Iran's latest crackdown - but wait. Didn't the EU vote to side with Iran (and Cuba, and China) in opposing continuing US control of the Net's naming protocols.
Supporters of the EU's stance reckon that it's quite a step from allowing nations to host their own naming protocols to closing down vast sections of the Web, but Iran and its censorious allies have shown previous and intent. You have been warned.
Idiocy knows no borders
While we're on the subject of governmental control of the media, check out Open Europe's latest report on the EU's "Television Without Frontiers" initiative.
TWF - aka the 'Audio Visual Media Services Directive' - is designed to "regulate media content involving all moving pictures", and updates previous legislation to take into account internet and online media services.
It includes such gems as warnings to flash up every 20 minutes to let viewers know that product placement may be taking place in the shows; and a ban on advertising on any shows less than 30 minutes in length (effectively preventing most UK soaps and game shows from supporting themselves).
However, the longterm damage caused by the directive could be worse than preventing Coronation Street from broadcasting ads for Take A Break. Europe-based companies could move to the US or elsewhere to get around EU regulations on broadcasting. It's true that the Internet can be posted anywhere and accessed from anywhere: How would the EU prevent viewers from viewing material created outside its remit - unless by invoking Iran-style media controls?
According to the author of the report, Syed Kamall, most of his fellow MEPs had never heard of YouTube before last summer: How people can place themselves in the position of drafting legislation to cope with an ever-changing environment without a basic knowledge of that medium's biggest innovators?
Madam President, dot com
Hillary Clinton launched her bid for the US Presidency this weekend. It looks like she's learning something from the Internet campaigns of France's contender Ségolène Royal, who invited comments and suggestions from supporters on a website to form the basis of her campaign. Maybe she was influenced by Britain's David Cameron, whose Webcameron video blog sets out to show a new side to the Tory leader.
Hillary plans a series of webchats - "an internet conversation with the American people" - which, she hopes, will round out her character somewhat.
Her earliest rival for the Democrat candidacy, Barak Obama, also launched his bid on the web.
Hopefully both will have learned the right lessons from Howard Dean's candidacy in 2004. Dean ran with the help of thousands of online backers and his campaign blog fed into liberal weblogs across the US, making him perhaps the first real Internet candidate. Dean was thought to listen to the voices of his supporters on the web - and perhaps got a misleading picture of the level of what many Americans would see as quite far-left feeling in the States.
Dean's meltdown was Internet-inspired too. A series of gaffes, culminating in a chilling victory howl, rapidly circulated on the web. Clever right-wingers, not to mention witty lefties, produced mash-ups and videos of Dean's antics. His campaign sank, though the Democrats have him as the chairman of their National Committee.
Goes to show that when you plug in online, you can reach the public easily, but become public property faster than candidates from any other era.
Perhaps more importantly for publicity hungry politicians, with the Internet you can be everywhere - and nowhere.
