13 April 2009

Janet Daley should keep taking the tablets

I can only assume that Guido will firing off some gunpowder in a certain direction when he reads this.

Is this story a victory for the blogosphere, or for the power of newspapers?

Am I missing something here? How could the great Labour smear story which brought down Damian McBride be (as everyone is claiming) a world-changing breakthrough for the power of the blogosphere when it was not published on a blog but in the Sunday newspapers? It may have been the blogger Paul Staines who obtained the fatal information but bizarrely, he did not then put it on his website, as Matt Drudge did when he had the similarly dangerous Monica Lewinsky story. To have done that might have established beyond doubt the influence of the Web in the political game here just as Drudge did in the US. Instead Mr Staines chose to tout his story to the newspapers in the sweet old fashioned way. Must we assume that even he does not believe that a blog post would have as much influence as a newspaper splash? Whatever his own views, it is certainly the case that this incident does not prove the power of the internet as a political player. If anything, it seems to show the opposite: that the world of blogging still sees itself as the poor relation.

Guido Fawkes played a blinder, not only on how he broke the story but also with his media appearances.  If he is not careful, he will soon become an elder-statesman of the political establishment!

As for Janet Daley.  She now becomes my nomination to succeed Damian McBride.

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1 comment:

  1. Howard I think Guido played it well. Enough info on his blog just to keep us 'in touch' then the selection of the NOTW and the Times. Between his blog and the two newspapers Brown & Co were squeezed from both sides at once.

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