The shared assumption of Peter Tupper, and Worried, is that bloggers are first and foremost journalists, or ought to be.

This ignores the many other legitimate applications of blogging, e.g. as a means of disseminating short stories, poetry, dramatic podcasts, experimental data, erotic photos, or journalling the growth of one's children.

If Peter had attended the panel on personal blogging, held at the same time as 'The Blogger as Citizen Journalist', he might be less likely to dismiss Canadian bloggers as somehow lagging behind, as though we were running some kind of race instead of using a new technology in whatever manner we wish.

Follow the links to BC Blogs from the Tyee front page, and tell me again how exactly we lag behind....?

I would have liked to read in this article how online communities relate to blogging communities. Bloggers seem to perpetuate the centralized tightly controlled broadcast paradigm that is at stake here. I note the Tyee does not track online communities (yet). A community "blog" seems to have value as fas as participatory democracy goes. I understand why so many people feel threathened by the change of scenery.

Réjean B.
Le Canard Réincarné
http://lecanardreincarne.freesoul.ca

There are close to 35 million blogs worldwide, so its true bloggers represent a bit of everything, and in all fiarness to Deeby, the seminar that Peter Tupper attended happened alongside the seminar on personal blogging.

Blogging is biggest in issues that affect us gloablly, just because of the pure size of a community. But its also interesting on how to use blogs for local issues. I run the website for the "Yes" campaign (www.stvforbc.com) in the referendum, and we've now placed a blog to help manage our information and to communicate with our supporters and canvassers. We're hoping to use it to keep people involved. And to generate interest, as well as provide more information than your standard website.

Blogs are excellent, for us, its an excellent way of keeping in touch, especially when running a provincial campaign without a large fundraising base. I can see the benefit for other community groups, who don't have the money for print advertising or media coverage. Anyone who googles bc-stv in our case can find our site, and we work with other bloggers to help raise awareness of the issues.
The blogging conference was excellent. It was really informative and I have never seen so many labtops in one room. Tim Bray was excellent, and helped us understand the impact of Blogs. Other speakers included Tod Maffin, a producer for CBC radio, who talked about podcasting and audio blogging, which is being used by people as an alternative to the radio. I was inspired by that, in that now I am looking to get interviews with the BC-STV supporters on the web. There was also segments on video blogging and the future of blogging. In which blogging is a way to break the control mechanisms of the modern media, and give anyone or group that wants to express itself or inform, a legitimate chance.

Tupper's article recalls the scene at the end of the Watchmen graphic novel when nominal villain Ozmandias surveys the worlds's moods (I'm not sure we had "memes" in 1985) by watching a massive array of televisions, broadcasting simultaneously. This is the effect one now gets from Google News, a robot ur-blog of wire feeds. Being able to tune into the "global voice of the world" is an exciting prospect. But we'll still need ears for it. Of necessity, software will filter the potential content into a comprehensible quantity. This new frontier could, in some ways, make it easier to be uninformed. In yesterday's media world, one had to pick up the whole newspaper to get to the comics, and might accidentally read an interesting news story. In the land o' personalized media, I could spend forever reading nothing but pop culture trash. (And the Tyee, of course.)

A couple points or questions: How does one verify information gleaned from blogs, discern the truth or separate the wheat from the chaff? The comparison to journalism is questionable, as bloggers are accountable to no one, but a journalist who fabricates stories inevitably is found out and his/her reputation is shot and career is finished.

Also, there have been those who've lost their jobs because of their "anonymous" blogs, ie. the Washington intern who kept a sex in the city diary of her whoring with Republicans, and the British bookstore clerk who (mildly) ridiculed his boss alongside his book reviews.

Tupper's various explanations for the weakness of Canadian compared to US bloggers are not persuasive. We should be looking at our own performance, not looking around for others to blame.

Kurt, you may be oversimplifying a bit. Head over to the Mediacheck section of Tyee and have a look at what journalists at a supposedly credible newspaper can get away with as long as they are toeing the 'correct'line.

Sorry, its Gutstein's comparison of Vancouver Sun coverage of the 2001 budget presentation and this latest budget.

Despite the fact that the bias, if not actual bullshit, is pretty easy to note using the comparison, I somewhat doubt anyone at the Sun will be shown the door for their participation in writing the copy or the equally misleading headlines.

As for your two examples of blogggers who paid the ultimate price, I'd sugggest both would have been asked to find a new job had their little black diary books (the old personal blog method), fallen into public view as well. They were indiscrete, the downfall of many a well
meaning person.

One of the problems with trying to compare blogs with traditional news sources, is that everything is in a state of flux right now and I doubt anyone could accurately describe how we will be digesting our info 20 or 30 years from now.

One safe assumption is that entertainment value will still be a priority over what we naively call the truth and so a critical eye will continue as the best lens through which to read it.

What makes a journalist? From my perspective it isn't a certificate or a degree, but the drive and intent to inform honestly and as frankly as possible.

Your concern about verification is quite legitimate, but then with the benefit of our 20/20 hindsight, which American newspaper would you have recommended Americans read to glean the truth on 9/11 in the months following that shocking event?

My own short answers would be 'none'. American journalism was for the most part abandoned as reporters like most US writers lept into the patriot's loud and myopic response position.

Canada lags behind in adopting new communications technologies? Ha, what a laugh. Canada has always been at the global FOREFRONT of new telecom technologies...

I disagree with you Norman, and same with Tupper. I don't see any problem with Canadian blogs beyond the fact they attract a smaller audience.

Where can I get the 101 on how to blog? Thanks

Where can I get the 101 on how to blog? Thanks

Nothing I said (top) suggests that bloggers should be journalists. Information is what I was talking about ... the facts we need if we're to understand the RCMP raid on the BC Legislature.

Today in Vancouver a truck driver was murdered -- the 3rd in the past 14 months, says the Vancouver Sun (dating from the day of the raid, apparently). With links, deaths, problems linked to other trucking companies.

This macabre scene is exactly what RCMP Sgt. Ward described to us 14 months ago. Don't you just wish to krist that somebody would start talking? and get this province cleaned up?

For your amuesement:
Paid to blog
It's something many bloggers must dream of - quitting work to blog full time. Veteran blogger Jason Kottke has decided to stop being a web designer take on his blog Kottke.org as a full-time enterprise. He intends to fund the venture by asking readers to donate $30 to "help enable [him] to edit/write/design/code the site for one year on a full-time basis". In the process he has possibly coined a new term - micropatron.
I can't decide what to make of this, which is reflected in the fact that on reading the widely divergent reactions on this Metafilter post and the at turns bitchy and encouraging comments, I agreed with what pretty much everyone said.
Camworld's right that people are cheap and Kottke's success may depend on providing his micropatrons with "something more tangible" - and as gwint and others point out, $30 isn't so much a micropayment as a midipayment. In my least charitable moments I have sympathy for Crunchland's view that such a request is little better than begging on a street corner.
For me, a more serious concern is that, like the rapper who runs out of things to write songs about when he becomes a celebrity, Kottke.org's "voice" will become lose something from becoming a for-profit enterprise. As odinsdream puts it over at MetaFilter, "It seems like these 'I want to live off my blog' business plans just end up cheapening their site by putting it at the centre of their lives."
And yet ... as someone who does get paid for writing and blogging, I have to applaud Kottke's brave move. As Meg Hourihan (who knows a thing or two about setting up new ventures) says, "This is the chance to support something new: an 'amateur' deciding to edit a blog full-time without corporate support and without advertising. It's a long time blogger chosing to go pro, and Jason is the perfect person to do it."
Anyway, as stupidsexyFlanders retorts to another MetaFilter poster who accuses Kottke of vanity in relation to his turning into a pro blogger, "I never understood all the kottke hating. Is it just 'a-list' envy? Something else? Because accusing a blogger of narcissism is like accusing your minister of piety, isn't it?"
Posted by Jane Perrone at February 22, 2005 05:27 PM

Hey Kurt, on your questions regarding bloggers. The blogging community has a lot of internal differences, like any community. Some of the better Blogs, have trackback and links to other sources, they are usually exceptional about showing there sources. They reference each other, when they agree or disagree. Bloggers are basically journalists without editors. What we are doing right now is a blog as well. A blog is just chronological posting. Rant, rave, or whatever, its a way of spreading information. Bloggers, linking to others is the best way to connect all the dots.

If, as Worried writes, "There's information floating around the corridors of the B.C. Legislature, around dinnertables, in bars and clubs, which could tell us exactly what brought the R.C.M.P. into the Ministries of Finance and Transportationon on 28 Dec. 2003."--how is it that no blogger or non-mainstream journalist, including those who write for The Tyee, has broken the story?

To Martha: there are a number of free blogging services like www.blogger and www.livejournal.com that make it extremely easy to sign up and start. Their whole business is getting the neophyte started.

To Allan:

It’s interesting that you chose the Sept. 11, 2001 tragedy to make your point about the reliability of the media in general. I agree with the contention that a “mob” mentality overtook coverage and politics in the 9/11 aftermath, but consider the hat trick of top media editors/broadcasters who were knocked off in the past year for grievous blunders in their coverage of issues related to the Iraq war.

Four top-level CBS news employees were sacked, and 60 Minutes’ presenter Dan Rather’s credibility was seriously damaged (Rather is retiring), after a report on GW Bush’s military service record was shown to be fabricated. The American network fired Mary Mapes, who produced the report; Josh Howard, the executive producer of 60 Minutes Wednesday; senior broadcast producer Mary Murphy; and senior vice president Betsy West. The 60 Minutes staff dug themselves in deeper when they initially refused to retract, and apologize for, the fake document (in this case, ironically, it was bloggers who pointed out that the document was produced by a computer word processing system that wasn’t invented at the time the document was purportedly written -- a ‘70s military report would have been hammered out on an IBM typewriter).

Allegations made by BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan in an interview with a British government minister led to a crisis that almost destroyed the Beeb -- Dr. David Kelly committed suicide, the resulting Hutton Report lambasted the Beeb on all fronts for making “unfounded” claims... end result, the Beeb’s Gilligan, Greg Dyke and Gavyn Davies were sacked. In addition, the publication of leaked extracts of the report in Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun was “deplorable” and the government pursued legal action over the leak.

Then there is the case of Piers Morgan, the once-esteemed editor of London’s The Daily Mirror, who was tossed out the front door by Trinity (publishers) after photos he published of alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British soldiers were proven to be fake.

All in all, it was a good year for politicians and a nasty one for journalists. As I said earlier, any comparison of journalism to blogging is facile.

Kurt, Good points. Notably absent from your list are any Canadian examples, more evidence that Canadian bloggers have not had much impact. And, as Todd notes, it's not because communications technologies develop more slowly in Canada; quite the opposite.

Maybe the differences are less than you think. Blogging is a very new phenomenon. It really hasn't begun to find itself yet, but it will.

The potential is huge, and it will be very hard for single interest owners to control it, as they have conventional journalism.

My point exactly, Norman. And don't tell me that there's nothing for bloggers or journalists to tell about the RCMP raid on the B.C. Legislature.

I think 1) the story has rationed out, in dribs and drabs, making the whole narrative difficult to follow, and 2) people do know it's about organized crime and the economy, and are scared to talk.

That sure as heck doesn't mean there's no story, which I think is what you're suggesting, Norman.

E.g., what about Bruce Torrie, a Liberal Party lawyer, whose home was burgled. Torrie figured the thieves were looking for documents, as they took nothing else. Torrie said he believes there are two crime rings battling it out within the Liberal Party. He even provided an RCMP file # and his own phone # hoping for tips. Haven't heard a thing since. Have you? If not, does it mean there's no story there either?

I imagine the editors of the Tyee will read your posting and follow up, if there's something there.

Why oh why do British Columbians keep saying that they imagine somebody else will do something someday which will put everything right? Was that a shrug, too?

Scared, I tell you. Everybody in this province is scared. What I'm asking you, Norman and other sincere bloggers is: must we stand, slack-jawed, gawping and drooling, as B.C.'s world comes to an end, not with a bang but a whimper?

I have discovered the joys of blogging after trying a few different formats for my project. I'm still learning a bit about the formatting etc.
I truly believe that blogs can make a difference in this next election if enough people create them and get them out there in BC. Here's my blog:

http://kaliadvocacyproject.blogspot.com/

here is something I came across on this issue.

MISTRUTH: Bloggers Will Obstruct the Work of "real" Journalists.

I was about to take issue with the claim that bloggers obstruct the work of "real" journalists until I remembered that the "real" journalists' work is to lie to the people, sell wars, sell candidates, sell stolen elections. Then I realized that yes indeed, such lies by the "real" journalists is what we obstruct around here.

This Article is from WHATREALLYHAPPEND.COM AND Newsclip Autopsy Both very informative sites.

I fervently hope this lives up to expectations. Free thinking and speaking is being slowly strangled...

I have b

Dear Editor,
Sometimes I feel I do not understand things so could one of your readers help me with this. If Canada joined the incredibly expensive missile defence project and, sometime in the future a country hostile to the U.S. sent them an atomic warhead via Canadian airspace, would our friends to the south wait until it reached U.S. airspace before shooting it down? Or would it be detonated over Canada whether or not we were in the project. Perhaps the infinitely arrogant Mr Paul Cellucci could inform us on this point.
Yours in puzzlement
Laurie Payne
S.22 C.9
R.R.#2
Chase, B.C.
V0E 1M0
Tel./Fax (250) 679-5364
een trying to get some recognition of this question from mainstream media CBC Daybreak The Current, The national Post The Globe, The Van sun all with alsolutely no effect. It begins to make me feel I am a little crazy. Is this question not apposite.

I have b

Dear Editor,
Sometimes I feel I do not understand things so could one of your readers help me with this. If Canada joined the incredibly expensive missile defence project and, sometime in the future a country hostile to the U.S. sent them an atomic warhead via Canadian airspace, would our friends to the south wait until it reached U.S. airspace before shooting it down? Or would it be detonated over Canada whether or not we were in the project. Perhaps the infinitely arrogant Mr Paul Cellucci could inform us on this point.
Yours in puzzlement
Laurie Payne
S.22 C.9
R.R.#2
Chase, B.C.
V0E 1M0
Tel./Fax (250) 679-5364
een trying to get some recognition of this question from mainstream media CBC Daybreak The Current, The national Post The Globe, The Van sun all with alsolutely no effect. It begins to make me feel I am a little crazy. Is this question not apposite.

I heard you on the cbc, Peter and you mentioned you wrote for Vancouver Mag. I too wrote for them back when it was a good little lit mag run by Mac Parry instead of just ads--the 70's I guess. It went downhill after Ron Stearns bought it out.Too bad. Dont know how you got two copies of my missile defense piece. Sorry 'bout that./

Donny, I have to agree with you. I am old enough to remember the photos of Belsen and Dachau when the troops went in. I have no doubt that mass atrocity occurred. But I have been and still am horrified at the way Canada treated Ernst Zundel. He is obviously an ill informed and probably not very bright man with a lot of prejudices. But he tested Canada's committment to freedom of speech and we failed, giving way to political pressure. It is easy to tolerate the freedom of speech of those with whom we agree, but it is precisely those with whom we disagree who must have our guarentee of protection. Is there not enough humour and ridicule- (the only effective tool against such as he ) in Canada to treat Zundel's ideas with the derision he deserves. ? What are we frightened of? Are there not enough facts, archives, photos, records to refute his attempts at propaganda? I must say that it is taboos, holy cows, political correctness, pressure-group intimidation and politicians like McClelland that I fear much much than the likes of Zundels. Let's never forget Voltaire's " Sir I profoundly disagree with what you are saying , but defend to the death your right to say it." And let's never forget that Anne McClelland saying of the Certificate of National Security. " It is only for use in very special occasions and has only been used once " Yet it was used in fact for silencing Zundel's nonsense and violating all our rights. THIS is scary stuff. All tyranny vegins with the acts of silencing.