Category — Blogging News

On the Gold Coast a breakfast radio show host has taken his fight against his former employer over his recent sacking to the web by setting up a blog.

The about page says all it needs to:

The process to protect my reputation and pursue my lawful rights is now actively underway.
- Rob McCasker

The open disclosure on this blog is good because so many times in the media industry whether it is radio, television, magazines or newspapers, a personality/broadcaster/journalist/columnist will leave yet there will be no explanation and their name will never be mentioned again by that station or publication. This blog gives his listeners as well as other industry people an explanation about the termination instead of it being a source of gossip and innuendo.

Still, even though the blogging evangelist inside of me thinks this is exactly why everyone should have a blog, it is a gutsy thing I have not seen done in the Australian media industry before so will be interesting to see how he goes in locating his next radio job and if there are any negative implications caused by fighting your old boss via a blog.

Even though as bloggers we are happily doing our own thing here on the internet it is always a nice bit of validation when old-media take an interest to explain aspects of blogging or introduce bloggers to a wider audience.

There were a couple of new stories this week that I saw some blogs I read which were highlighted:

- Defamer Australia’s editor got some front page love from the Sydney Morning Herald web site over the weekend.

- And, Network Ten featured Darren Rowse, Karen Cheng and Neerav Bhatt in a segment in their news bulletins today on making a profession from blogging.

Hope everyone got some new readers and commenters to enjoy your writing. Congrats on the media attention!

Saw in my Tumblr dashboard via Something Changed that the identities behind the pseudonyms “The Hack” and “Caz” from the once very popular and particularly spiteful but now defunct blog The Spin Starts Here have been revealed.

This is pretty big news, especially to anyone who was around the blogosphere a few years ago but a fair outing considering the hateful attacks they used to dish out to other bloggers under the veil of anonymity the web afforded them.

You can read the whole story and back story of The Spin Starts Here at http://jamieduncan.wordpress.com

One of my fave bloggers, Marieke Hardy, also known as Ms Fits from the popular blog Reasons You Will Hate Me has announced she will stop blogging to concentrate on travelling and writing a novel.

As well as winning the gong for best Australia/New Zealand blog at this year’s international blog awards (a result that as far as I noticed didn’t raise the usual petty remarks and vitriol from other bloggers towards any high profile blog that scores some mainstream media attention). She has been a wonderful example of how by the simple act of writing online on a blog can lead to recognition of your talents in wider endeavours. All through having a blog Marieke landed a weekly newspaper column as a television critic, a panel spot on a television show and a gig co-hosting a breakfast radio show.

While the attrition of a blog isn’t really newsworthy outside of her readers. I thought this text from her farewell post shows how sometimes people’s mindshare can be too devoted to their blog.

It is my sneaking suspicion that perhaps reducing the amount of mind-numbing political photo based ring-rings and scouring the newspapers for vacuous crap to tear apart each day may lead to some more productive work, though this is of course all speculative at this stage.

I guess not everyone would need to go cold turkey but certainly something to consider if you feel like your blog is holding you back from getting stuff done.

Joel Postman has a spot on post arguing that claiming oneself to be a blogger is now a misnomer:

A blog is a tool. There is no such thing as “a blogger,” or someone who can be rationally defined by their ability to use a blog, no more so than there are “wordists,” people who define themselves based on their ability to use MS Word. The number of people who blog is now so large, and the things they blog about and the reasons they use blogs so diverse, that classifying someone as a blogger doesn’t makes sense.

The rest of the post is well worth a read.

I’m off making changes to my business cards right now.

When you see some of the blog related initiatives that are occurring during the US Presidential election which really embrace bloggers you realise just how far behind blogging is in this country.

The DNCC (Democrats) previously announced an expansion of the credentialed blogger pool from past Conventions and the addition of a state blogger credentialing program. As part of the new DemConvention State Blogger Corps, designed for bloggers covering state and local politics, bloggers will receive unparalleled access to state delegations and the floor of the Convention hall. In a truly unprecedented move, the DNCC will seat these bloggers with their respective delegations during the historic four-day event, providing even greater access for local coverage and perspective. Highlights from these blogs will also be featured on www.DemConvention.com in the lead up to and during the Convention.
- DNC Chairman Governor Dean Announces Blogs Selected For 2008 Democratic National Convention ‘State Blogger Corps’

(found via Something Changed)

While on the other side of stateside politics, the Republican party is courting lefty bloggers.

The McCain campaign has recently started to hold bi-weekly conference calls with left-wing blogs and blogs focusing on single issues, such as the environment and health care.

Politicians who hold blogger calls usually reach out to writers on the same team, trusting that those writers and party activists will amplify their message.
- via Wired

While it would be very easy to get down about this sort of thing. I think it is best to just look at it as an opportunity to teach politicians at every level of government in our country about blogging.

At the moment there’s a corporate fight for board control of The West Australian newspaper. It is between the incumbent directors and a Kerry Stokes led new group of directors.

I’m not going to weigh into the discussion as I have have never read the publication nor do I live in in W.A or know their media scene. Though I must admit I loved this quote by Australia’s richest man, Andrew Forrest, attacking the paper…

“If The West Australian continues to have a declining readership and a blog-style to its editorial, then we will definitely have a second newspaper on our doorsteps taking advantage of that gap.”

My first thoughts were that if their editorial and op-ed columns really are ‘blog-style’ then maybe ’tis a forward thinking and magnificent publication that doesn’t need to be fixed. Anyway, it made me laugh when I read that this morning so thought I should share it.

Also, if you were someone that like me would have taken the attack as a complement then you should probably forget about ‘blog-style’ and check out the real thing with fine Perth reporting occurring through citizen journalists at PerthNorg.

Laurel Papworth and Australian IT have alerted me to The Consumer Generated Media Report (100k PDF) by Nielsen Online who surveyed over 4,000 online users from Australia and New Zealand and have concluded that 48% of Australian internet users have read a blog, 16% of have created a blog and 15% update their blog.

Using the most recently published Nielsen//NetRatings statistics which indicate that Australia has 14,729,191 internet users, we can say that Australia has:

7,070,011 people who read blogs
2,356,670 people who have created a blog
2,209,378 people who currently update their blog

These are impressive and somewhat surprising figures. Though, I certainly dispute the create and update ratio of being just one percentage point difference. The attrition rate of blogs is much higher than that. From my small list of just 5103 active Australian blogs I have an alternate list which contains over 7000 Australian blogs that were active at some time in the last 12 months when I started maintaining the list but which are now either not currently active in the last 3 months or have been deleted/removed from the internet entirely.

Something else from the study which I take interest in was the confirmation that the top Factor influencing online consumers’ uptake of CGM activities was that Australian internet users would have to have more time. I’ve think the recent uptake of micro-blogging platforms like Tumblr as well as instant message/forum style mashup that is the web/mobile platform Twitter has been because of their easy ability to post information quickly and lower digital literacy level required to perform most tasks compared to traditional blogging platforms.

While the report is only four pages long and scant on detail, it is heartening to see some research into this area. From academics I’ve spoken to recently it seems that Universities are now starting to fund research into blogging, consumer generated media and social media so expect to see more and hopefully better studies published in the near future.

This is one of those stories that seem ridiculous to passionate bloggers yet illustrate the techno-legal and techno-corporate time gap that the use of new media tools such as blogs face within institutions like the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and large media companies.

For those unaware, the IOC and therefore all of the national committees in participating countries had previously not allowed any athletes competing during the Olympics to publish a blog.

Last year the IOC were reviewing this policy :

Competing athletes are specifically prevented from working as journalists during the Games and have so far been strictly denied rights to continue writing internet columns during the event.

But Olympic sources said yesterday that the IOC was set to make the shift as it realised it had to recognise the dramatic expansion of the internet in the daily lives of athletes. The IOC is also keen to expand the appeal of the Olympics to the youth market.
via The Australian July 26, 2007

On Friday last week a small step to further the legitimacy and adoption of blogging was taken thanks to the IOC’s decision to allow athletes to blog at the Beijing Olympics.

The Beijing Olympics are set to become the “blog Games” after Australian athletes were given the green light to express their views for the first time in internet blogs they write during the Olympics.
via The Australian February 18, 2008

However, it is not a free for all with the IOC keen to protect broadcast rights holders as well as sports betting companies who combined contribute billions of dollars in revenue. Which is why athletes will be restricted in not being allowed to upload audio or video as well as not mention any confidential information on third parties.

Also, just because the IOC has approved it not all countries have allowed their athletes to maintain a blog during the Games. New Zealand is one which has not yet dropped the blogging restrictions.

What has caused most discussion amongst bloggers is the how the IOC has separated blogging from journalism.

Under the new rules, blogs are allowed as long as they are used for personal expression and not journalism, meaning “it be confined solely to their own personal Olympic-related experience”.
via paidContent.org

This is one of those pointless infinite loop symantic arguments about blogging/journalism that I generally roll my eyes at and avoid. I will say that even though I think the statement by the IOC is mostly PR spin to not scare and annoy their media overlords, there is some truth to it. I know this will miff many of bloggers but I agree that the athletes in this circumstance would be more bloggers than journalists. Even though I do believe the lines of journalist and blogger have blurred and that with the tools we have now anyone can be a journalist and it is almost built in as part of being a human being in the 21st century. I just see that the athletes will be posting more about themselves than reporting in the greater context of events during the games. It’s all purely speculation. Lets wait and see what is published on the blogs by the athletes before we detemine wether they are bloggers or journalists.

My biggest thought is how the IOC and the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) here in Australia is going to allow athletes to blog: as individuals or only as part of an official platform?

Laurel Papworth also alludes to the same question:

Blogging as a “legitimate form of personal expression” and “not a form of journalism.” I wonder if they are capturing the blogs under one blog banner, or if they are free to wander off to blogspot and wordpress and other personal sites? If they do it under a banner, it’s not really a “legitimate form of personal expression” then is it? It’s a “form of marketing”.
via SilkCharm

There is only one Australian Olympic athlete that I know of who is currently blogging(wouldn’t you know that I can’t find his blog now when I need it). He is a sailor who has been blogging during the lead up to the games about his qualifying trials. I will update this post with the URL when I find it.

I know that this is being viewed by the blogosphere as not open enough. But quite frankly, if the IOC allowed anymore than they have, some of the officials and broadcasters’ heads would have exploded. The IOC is a massive old bureaucracy so I think this is a great first step by them to embrace new personal publishing technologies and put blogs firmly in the world’s spotlight this August. Let the blogs begin!

A couple of other news articles about this story:
Australian IT - Blog away, AOC tells Olympians
ZDNet - Aussie Olympian blogs muzzled, not censored
ABC - Australia will not gag Beijing blogs: AOC

Just saw this article on Wired which indicates that:

A leading general and former top military spokesman in Iraq is pleading with the armed services to let troops blog and post to YouTube.

And then goes on to say that:

…in a struggle where perception is often as important as bombs-and-bullets conflict, soldiers ought to be encouraged and equipped to wage that information war on their own. And that means “get[ting] onto blogs and [s]end[ing] their YouTube videos to their friends and family.”

This got me thinking and curious if anyone knows if Australian soldiers on active duty overseas are allowed to blog and if so, are any currently blogging?

Email me anthony [at] blogs.com.au or leave a comment. Thanks.