BBC’s Marr blasts bloggers: socially inadequate, pimpled, single and seedy
It is distressing sometimes to see how out of touch some people in the mainstream in the media are. Andrew Marr, the BBC political commentator and presenter, at the weekend ranted about bloggers calling them “socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy…”. No really, tell us what you think.
In his speech at the Cheltenham Literature Festival he also accused them (us, you, me) of being anonymous. Having blogged for years in various parts of the blogosphere I certainly wish at times I had been anonymous. It would have got of me out of a few scrapes.
Of course, there are bloggers out there who do their business anonymously (there are probably some who have pimples too), but many (the vast majority) are not anonymous. Although for reasons of sensitivity some do go by pseudonyms.
But that said, it is startling to see how out of touch he is. Not least in his claim that most “citizen journalism strikes me as nothing to do with journalism”. That seems harsh. Blogging is so varied in form ranging from breaking news, to debate and commentary. Some of it is very good and not unlike the kind of writing you find on the editorial pages of newspapers. Except, of course, those people are paid.
As are many bloggers which is why just the other week AOL paid $30m for technology news blog Techcrunch. And why the Huffington Post is making cash and is chasing the New York Times for traffic. Not exactly inadequate.
The natural extension of those newspaper comment pages are blogs, which is what has given us sites such as Comment is Free at the Guardian. That platform provides the bandwidth that the pages of newspapers and bite sized, dumbed down, TV news does not.
It is also a place where stories are broken particularly on political blogs many of which have very large readerships.
What’s also worth noting that his antipathy is not unusual. There are well documented incidents of mainstream media biting back at bloggers. Most recently an anonymous Australian blogger Grog’s Gamut (#groggate) was outted by The Australian after he had attacked the mainstream media’s coverage of the recent Australian elections.
Anyway here are Marr’s comments in full: “A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting. They are very angry people.
“OK – the country is full of very angry people. Many of us are angry people at times. Some of us are angry and drunk. But the so-called citizen journalism is the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night.
“It is fantastic at times but it is not going to replace journalism…”
Well no one said it was going to replace journalism, but it certainly adds to it and it is a major force in journalism, which is why so many journalists blog including many of Marr’s BBC colleagues – such as Nick Robinson who does the job that Marr used to do. He didn’t have anything to say about that.
He did add answering a question from the audience at Cheltenham Town Hall that there are some very angry types hitting those keys.
“Most of the blogging is too angry and too abusive. It is vituperative. Terrible things are said on line because they are anonymous.
People say things on line that they wouldn’t dream of saying in person.”
All Comments
Marr is mostly right. Most blogging is badly-informed and poorly considered. Most blogs are not edited (the piece above has at least one editorial error). Most blogs are badly-written. Most rely on a rapidly-declining force of professional journalists to acquire the original information on which opinions may be based. Some blogging is valuable, of course; but the bulk is just pub chatter.
Clearly Sturgeon’s Law – “90% of everything is crud” – applies to blogging, but it applies to most other things, including mainstream journalism. Marr might like to kid himself that his profession is characterised by plucky foreign correspondents and dogged investigative reporters, but to be honest, that’s just a thin layer of cream atop a mountain of recycled press releases, parochial banality, celebrity tittle-tattle (much of it entirely invented; “a friend said…”), dog-whistle political shit-stirring, and the sort of un-researched off-the-top-of-the-head lifestyle columns (Liz Jones, Jan Moir, etc) that uphold all the worst qualities that Marr and friends ascribe to bloggers. Clear out your own back yard, first, Andrew.
@Nick you do have a point – blogs do rely to some degree on professional journalists, but it is bigger than that. Many increasingly take their lead straight from the source and provide an alternative platform and community.
That’s very apparent when you look at particular markets such as fashion and even more so in the case of mommy/mummy bloggers who really don’t have any kind of mainstream media reliance.
@Tim you’re right about the cream and the crap, but even beneath that there is large (and, yes, diminishing) army of professional journalists working in business and local journalism.
Good blog post – although you’ve made a slightly poor judgement by including The Huffington Post as a successful blog.
That website is massive, but it’s because of the huge investment put in and the fact they don’t pay 1,000s of their bloggers.
Thanks @Adrian, you have a point re Huffpo, but while the scale is very large it does in character reflect a lot of blogs ie some contributions are paid and some are not.
Andrew Marr assumes most bloggers are socially inadequate. Assume makes an ass out of you and me as the saying goes. I don’t know exactly how you would go about defining who or what is socially inadequate.
I think if you are prepared to use the same words to someone’s face as you would in an email or blog then it should focus on the details and keep criticism at a more constructive level.
It would be wrong to assume that Marr is simply playing to this particular audience. I think.
@Don as a rule of thumb I wouldn’t say anything in a blog post that I wouldn’t be prepared to say to someone’s face.
Maybe that’s why Marr gave not one example of these ” socially inadequate” types he was talking about.
And once again the blog/twittersphere goes into massive overreaction overdrive…
Marr said ‘a lot of’. Not all, not even most. Just a lot of. And the sad truth of the matter is that there are a lot of blogs run by people which have little credibility or value, and just serve and sounding boards for ill-informed ranting, speculation, gossip and sneering. And for every success like HuffPo or Techcrunch there’s half a dozen conspiracy theorists, ranters or gossip-merchants.
I doubt Marr is devaluing all blogging – despite what the reaction from the digirati types so desperate to take up arms against a trad hack would suggest. His wife, after all, blogs at CiF.
As for claims citizen journalism would replace conventional reporting – unfortunately that’s exactly the line peddled by a lot of the nu-wave j-school types like Jeff Jarvis.
And his quotes on web commenters using anonymity/pseudonyms as cover to say things they’d never dare utter in real life? Spot on.
Blogging is a fantastic, useful, vital platform and part of the digital community. But like all communities, it has aspects which are seedy, rude, aggressive and just plain wrong.
You can do better than this, Gordon. Just because someone advances a view you disagree with, it doesn’t always follow that they’re “out of touch”. Or, as that tired old dotcom jibe has it, that they just don’t “get it”. I’d be willing to bet that Marr consumes more media, both on and offline, than you or any of the respondents to this blog. He may well be ill-mannered from time to time, but that’s a slightly different issue.
@Alasdair, i do think he’s out of touch as i would anyone who makes such sweeping generalisations.
I’m sure he consumes a lot of media, and I don’t mind him being ill mannered, but that doesn’t make him right. Maybe he should consume some more blogs he might find his slighlty jaundiced view of the blogosphere altered.
Anyone more interested in the Groggate saga in Australia can follow it on my blog where I’ve been tracking the articles and posts about it – over 115 so far!
List of articles/posts: http://egovau.blogspot.com/2010/09/when-traditional-media-exposes-public.html
Stats on Groggate: http://egovau.blogspot.com/2010/10/stats-on-articles-and-posts-for.html
Cheers,
Craig
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