Courtesy of the Devil’s Kitchen, this, from Stephen Tall:
Which definition comes closest to your view of political blogs?
Blog (n.): an online journal written by publicity-hungry politicians and self-opinionated journalist manqués, commenting on current political affairs with scant regard to fact or fairness, and accountable to nobody save their small band of obsessive readers.
Or:
Blog (n.): an online journal written and/or read by anyone in the democratic world, providing them with a platform to address issues of concern to them, and which is transforming the relationship between modern citizens and the traditional governing and media elites.
For me, the latter comes closest. The former is the one used by pompous jackanapes such as Oliver Kamm and similar mainstream journos, who are so insecure they perceive their livelihood threatened, to justify their somewhat incessant and shrill attack on blogs as something to be shut down, rather than encouraged. Given that blogs are merely a medium for communication and follow a format familiar to anyone who has discussed politics in a pub, the journos can rest easy that we are not lining up to take their jobs. They may become irrelevant as people realise that their version of events isn’t all its cracked up to be and that their opinion pieces are full of ill conceived twaddle, but that’s another matter…
Stephen comes to a conclusion:
Blog (n.): my space to write about whatever’s delighted or annoyed me that day, forcing me to arrange half-formed thoughts into something semi-coherent for public consumption, keeping my thinking fresh and up-to-the-mark.
Bang on the button, methinks.