{"id":152,"date":"2006-12-20T14:50:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-20T20:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=152"},"modified":"2006-12-20T14:50:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-20T20:50:00","slug":"written-by-fools-for-the-reading-of-imbeciles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2006\/12\/written-by-fools-for-the-reading-of-imbeciles\/","title":{"rendered":""Written by fools for the reading of imbeciles""},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>JOSEPH RAGO “The blogs are not as significant as their self-endeared curators would like to think. Journalism requires journalists, who are at least fitfully confronting the digital age. The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“The time has come,” the Walrus said,<\/span>
“To talk of many things:<\/span>
Of shoes – and ships- and sealing-wax –<\/span>
Of cabbages – and kings –<\/span>
And why the sea is boiling hot –<\/span>
And whether pigs have wings.”<\/span><\/div>\n

T<\/span>he WSJ<\/span>‘s op-ed column goes for blogs<\/a>. Actually a chap called Joseph Rago<\/span>, assistant editorial features editor of the WSJ<\/span> goes for them. Well done young man! You’ve shot the elephant.<\/p>\n

Here is the news. Blogs are blogs. Mine is written in scraps of the day, mainly to pass on interesting things that I like to anyone who cares to notice (Richard Jefferies<\/span>, Francois Villon, Primo Levi<\/span>, Antoine de Sainte-Exup\u00e9ry<\/span> etc.), but also to force me to react to the news cycle. If I want to write something more considered, there are books (with about the same number of readers), or I can just take more time to write what I post.<\/p>\n

Blogs are mainstream media now. This blog certainly isn’t MSM, but in the UK a political blogger like Iain Dale<\/a> gets over 6,000 hits a day – that adds up to a weekly circulation many trade magazines would be happy with.<\/p>\n

There are three types of blog I value particularly:<\/p>\n