“Dinosaurs didn’t roam the earth forever”

One of my favourite bloggers, Phil Gomes over at Citystate has a very interesting reflection on the eclipse of op/ed columnists by bloggers – well worth reading. One of the constant bugbears of the blogosphere is the degree to which it’s parasitic on mainstream media. Lately, I think, this has become less the case on Oz political blogs, with more original and inciteful analyses sprouting up all over the place. Personally, I much prefer reading John Quiggin than most other Fin columnists, Tim Dunlop than Phillip Adams and The Currency Lad than Hendo. Oh, and Rafe Champion to other Popperians. Are bloggers the new public intellectuals?

ELSEWHERE: Tim Dunlop and John Quiggin also comment on the public intellectuals issue. Tim’s long essay (linked from his post) is well worth a look.

UPDATE: More on the public intellectuals list at Stack.

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C.L.
2024 years ago

Eek! Does this mean Chris Sheil & Co. are going to hound me under the banner of ‘The Shorter Lad’ every week?

I think I’ve resolved some of my own doubts on the nature of the sphere after thinking about it for a week or so. Here’s a comment I made in the ‘Be Not Forgotten’ thread at my blog in response to a good point made by Cameron Riley (http://www.southsearepublic.org/):

“I think that point about the necessity of primary input is exactly right… And that’s hard: most newspaper columnists write, say, one or two opinion pieces a week. Writing six or seven is a lot harder and is probably inadvisable in any case.

“An opinion piece is not reportage, of course, but until bloggers go to press conferences and conduct their own interviews – as some now do in fact – the primary nature of bloggers’ work will be characterised by:

1) original deconstruction of MSM reportage and commentary; 2) op-ed-style opinion; 3) personalised journal-keeping (web-logging); 4) humour and satire; 5) other literary or cultural contributions – short stories, photoblogging etc.

“Even without press gallery journalism and notebook-in-hand reportage, that’s really fairly solid as a cultural contribution.”

Rafe
2024 years ago

On a point of detail, who are the other Popperians in the southern hemisphere apart from Jeremy Shearmur at ANU. Sorry, not a fair question as Mark is supposed to be off the air for a while. Bon voyage!

Mark Bahnisch
Mark Bahnisch
2024 years ago

I couldn’t think of any either, Rafe!

I’m off the air as regards posting as I want to focus my major writing energies on the final lap of thesis writing, but I’ll still be reading and perhaps popping up in comments…

Rafe
2024 years ago

So you prefer me to …..a non-existent class of persons. Some compliment!
Only joking Mark!
See if you can minimise your popping activities in the interests of getting your thesis written. On the other hand, maybe popping in for a comment will be a refreshing change of pace. In moderation.