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Bloggers: It's time for the weird to turn pro
Bloggers, or pajamahidin as they've been called, to start taking their responsibilities seriously. That means putting on their reporting shoes, leaving their bedrooms, buying a notepad and throwing themselves into covering the stories that no one in the traditional media would dare to, or care to
By Paul Carr
THE GUARDIAN, LONDON
Thursday, Mar 03, 2005, Page 9
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ILLUSTRATION: MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
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A week on and I am still numb. This time last week I arrived at the office and fired up our Web stats software to see who had dropped into the site over the weekend. It did not take me long to realize that something was horribly wrong. One visitor had arrived after searching Google for "Hunter S Thompson died." Another had searched for "Hunter Thompson how died." And so on. The story had broken too late to catch the morning papers, so the first I heard of the death of the greatest journalist ever was from a list of search results.
I tried to write an instant obituary of sorts for Friday Project but, as I started surfing for background information, I realized that there was no point. Hundreds of e-zines and blogs had already begun chronicling the life of the great man, linking to snippets of his work, and considering why he might choose to take his own life at this time.
The tributes were not all fond -- some bloggers even called him a coward for quitting just when the world needed him most. Crap.
Thompson's time had long gone. He was a typewriter-and-print man and as such he needed a mass-circulation magazine or newspaper with the courage to print his words. Tragically, that kind of print publication does not exist any more. Look at what the once-mighty Rolling Stone has become -- dependent on The Man for access and banning staffers from drinking alcohol during lunch meetings. Nice one, Jann. Rock and roll.
The world needed Thompson most during the Nixon era -- and he delivered, in spades. If, 30 years on, we still have not found a replacement, then that is the world's failing, not his. But the bloggers do have a point -- there is no obvious heir to the Gonzo throne.
And yet consider Thompson's modus operandi. He was fiercely opinionated; he documented almost every aspect of his life, as if not committing something to paper meant it had not really happened; he used the power of the fax to get answers from people in power (the equivalent today would be e-mail); he consumed the media as if his life depended on it, tearing it apart and writing up the results for a potential audience of millions ... If he wasn't the archetypal blogger I don't know who was.
With the traditional media, particularly in the US, rapidly turning to unquestioning mush, and blogs being responsible for more and more muckraking and story-breaking, Thompson's death is the perfect time for bloggers to be recognized as the nearest thing we have to Gonzo journalism. There is just one problem -- with very few exceptions, bloggers are embarrassingly, pathetically lazy. When Thompson got excited by a story, he would get on a plane and make himself part of it. How could he know what was really going on if he never left his "heavily fortified compound" in Woody Creek? And yet hand most bloggers a tip on a silver platter and they will publish it verbatim, without so much as a follow-up phone call.
Of course, there are good reasons why bloggers cannot be as dedicated as Thompson was. Firstly, Thompson was paid for his work while bloggers do it for love and the occasional Paypal donation.
Secondly, Thompson had press accreditation to major events while bloggers do not. Yeah, right. Sites such as Gawker and Wonkette have shown that advertisers are more than willing to pay handsomely for first-person online journalism, especially if it is edgy and has a unique voice. And that is before you consider the spin-off opportunities that have been realized by the likes of the Baghdad Blogger and Belle de Jour. And as for access -- anyone with a decent audience and even cursory blagging skills can get accreditation to cover almost anything (our writers were gaining access to ministers and arms fairs months before anyone had heard of us). The money and access are there for the taking -- you have just got to want them.
It is time for bloggers to start taking their responsibilities seriously. That means putting on their reporting shoes, leaving their bedrooms, buying a notepad and throwing themselves into covering the stories that no one in the traditional media would dare to, or care to. US President George W Bush is our former US president Richard Nixon, Google is our Rolling Stone, the going has got weird -- and it's time for the weird to turn pro.
Paul Carr is editor-in-chief of the online Friday Project (www.thefridayproject.co.uk).
COPYRIGHT: GUARDIAN NEWSPAPERS LIMITED 2005
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