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Tubridy on Blogging the Election
Read more about: Blogging, Conferences 
Last week, in the run up to the Blogging the Election conference, Ryan Tubridy interviewed Cian of Where’s me Country and Mick of Slugger O’Toole on his show. They say that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but I’m not sure that the piece will help the cause of Irish blogging.
The interview was a sham. Tubridy spent more time talking at Cian and Mick than actually asking questions or listening to their answers. Tubridy suffers from several delusions regarding blogs, delusions which he may have passed on to a certain section of the Irish population.
The problem with Tubridy is that he seemed to be confusing blogs with message boards. He asked the Cian to explain what a blog is, but then went ahead and ignored the answer supplied by Cian. The answer provided highlighted the fact that blogs enabled the exploration of points of discussion in a way that other mediums did not, but Tubridy somehow decided that this meant that blogs were more gossipy than the traditional media.
Ryan spent the entire interview talking at the contributors while ignoring their answers and arguments. His mind was made up. He seemed to think that most blogs are made up of the rantings of vain geeks who like to spread gossip while hiding behind their sofas. In the vast majority of cases, this is not true, though given that Ryan works for the Sunday World, you’d imagine that he really shouldn’t see that as a bad thing. The fact is that every type of person blogs, from farmers and pensioners to famous writers and scientists. The subjects vary from linguistics to head lice, and a great deal of it is informative and well written.
Tubridy, it seems, is seemed incapable of looking beyond his own experience. Constantly, he made reference to the fact that blogging did not feature in his life “whatsoever” and that he did not know who Guido Fawkes or Matt Drudge were, and he, after all, was pretty “savvy” when it came to this sort of thing. But this is hardly surprising, given that the man had never actually visited a blog in his life. My Grandfather does not listen to the radio, so it’s hardly surprising that he does not know who Ryan Tubridy is. It’s a little crazy for Ryan to start arguing about something he knows nothing about, especially given that he had not even visited the blogs of his contributors before he interviewed them. Apparently, real journalists don’t have to “do” research.
Blogs have become popular around the world because they offer ordinary people the opportunity to share their experiences, expertise, information and opinions with the world in a way that other mediums cannot. When you read a blog, you usually have the automatic right to reply. You can discuss and debate matters with individuals in an organised manner that allows you to structure your argument without fear of interruption and without having to worry about column inches.
So far, Ireland has avoided the blogging revolution. This is largely because of broadband issues, but also because we have not had an election since blogging became available to the average individual. Hopefully, the Irish Blogosphere will continue to expand in the run up to the next election. If it does, then our country will be better off for it.
Bloggers do not stand for bullshit in the way that newspaper readers are forced to. If you state something that is false in a blog, somebody will tell you as much. If your argument is illogical, somebody will point it out. If you make a claim without providing a source, somebody will ask you for it, and if you can’t provide it, then your credibility is compromised. Bloggers police each other in a rather ruthless manner, and rebuttals come not in 100 word long letters to the editor two weeks after the offending piece is published, but right beneath the offending post.
Journalists like Kevin Myers and John Waters may have learned their craft well, but verbose morons who attempt to use large vocabularies to compensate for their small personalities and irrational arguments would not survive long online. There may be people who like to read the beautifully crafted works of such “professionals” who been to college to master the art of talking about politics, and that’s fine. Nobody will ever be forced to read a blog, but people, like Ryan, who refuse to dip their toe in the water and try it will be the ones to lose out.
Tubridy had Johnny Logan on his TV show on Saturday night. He was telling him that his new song was a big hit on the Internet. The people who have been spreading the word about Johnny Logan’s song online have been bloggers. any site that mentioned it has posted the imbedded YouTube video in their blog and it has been passed around in this way.
The fact that Tubridy says that it was doing the rounds of the internet means that blogs have infact impacted on his life, if only in a small way.
I wonder if he has ever played the JCB song on his show. Wasn’t that spread around the internet before it became a big hit?
Somehow, I suspect that Ryan was told by someone else that Johnny’s song was a hit on the net. Next, he’s going to tell us the net is a series of tubes.
He didn’t get that bloggers can produce on the spot local news, of local and international events in a way that hasn’t been possible even with website and messages boards and usenets of the last 10 years. He so stuck in the eighties that guy. What do you want professional newmen or the actual story.
eighties? I thought his thing was he was a young fogie, so he’d be most at home in the 50s.
Young Fogie, that man is just closed minded. Whether it’s gay pride marches, science fiction, or music composed after 1967, the man just can’t ignores other points of view.
He’s also some relation of the Andrews Fianna Fáil clan.
A first cousin, but RTE doesn’t mention that so much. Miriam O’Callaghan is a sister of Jim O’Callaghan general election candidate in Dublin South East.
Of course, all such things are coincidence.
Tubridys cousin has a political blog at http://www.chrisandrews.ie/
It’s not really a blog, though it is nice that he includes a letter from himself (see here http://www.chrisandrews.ie/?sectionid=9 ) to the IT where he refers to himself as CLLR Christ Andrews. Isn’t it great when you’re so born to power and entitlement that a little thing like losing an election doesn’t stop you from calling yourself cllr.
Yours, Lord Mayor and Chief Justice – Dan Sullivan
Speaking of YouTube it was the Techcrunch blogger who broke the Google acquisition story well ahead of mainstream media. I heard the same piece and also the item by Hook “what’s a blog anyway” on Newstalk last Monday night. My reaction to their piece is that they feel threatened by citizen journalism but they probably will follow once they learn that the likes of the BBC, Sunday Times and Guardian all have active blogs. Thomas Power has a good post on the Newsassignment experiment which is supported by Craigslist which plans to combine citizen journalism with professional editing and reporting. See http://afriendineverycity.com/?p=54
Dan, http://www.chrisandrews.ie/ may not fit a strict definition of a blog but it is a move in the right direction and should probably be encouraged as a higher quality source of candidate information. For example, it allows people like yourself access to information which you may not agree with. The commenting facility may be enabled soon seeing as FFs Damien Blakes weblog has not attracted some of the obsessives that can frequent such sites.
You may be interested in reading a piece by Piaras Kelly (at http://www.pkellypr.com/blog/2006/0321/politics-and-the-internet-a-tangled-web/) for a little bit more background on political blogging within Fianna Fail.
‘be encouraged’? What is Chris Andrews a five year old making his first attempts at drawing? Surely, if there is no commenting at present it can’t be viewed as a blog.
‘For example, it allows people like yourself access to information which you may not agree with.’ I’m sorry, I honestly do not follow the thought at work here. Are you suggesting that I disagree with allowing people have access to information? Why would I disagree with that?
Dan I would read that as access information on policies that you might not agree with. Then what do i know
“What is Chris Andrews a five year old making his first attempts at drawing?”
Obviously not but I would say that if people are interested in building momentum for political blogging then I think those that are giving serious consideration to it should be encouraged. What I mean by that, is that you could send an email asking if commenting is to be enabled. If the momentum is there the politician is more likely to react which is probably more positive than just pejoratively noting that the site is not a blog in the purist sense.
Apologies for the poor grammar (I have a predilection for overlong sentence structure) but Simon got it right!
As far as the commenting argument goes I note that blogging advocate Richard Delevan has no comments facility on his site (I will refrain from using the term blog for fear of upsetting the purists).
Is it just me, or does Chris Andrews look oddly like a character from the Muppet Show? I can’t put my finger on which one though…
Is it Sam the Eagle?
lol
So we’re to ‘encourage’ Chris to do things that might assist in him getting elected? Geez, I’ve heard it all now.