The Big City

So this is the blogosphere’s big chance. Big media has been muzzled by the courts and only the free press, the plucky political bloggers, are free to tell us the whole story. (I’m talking about the Cash for Honours story, but of course you knew that!)
As soon as the BBC was prevented from running last night’s story about an embarrassing email, possibly involving “two members of Tony Blair’s inner circle” I knew that the the baton would be taken up by Media 2.0. Free from the shackles of partisan proprietors and government interference they would be able to tell the story that the mainstream media cannot.
How wrong I was. They have nothing to say at all. It’s not just because they’re too chicken, it’s also because those bloggers who take an interest in this sort of story don’t want to do anything that might weaken any eventual prosecution of a member of the government.
It’s tactical reporting, they only report things that they hope will lead to an outcome that they desire. In other words it’s not journalism at all. Journalists, even quite bad ones, all realise that they have a responsibility to do stories whether or not the reporting of a story will lead to a happy (or a sad) ending. The point is that you just report the facts, you don’t try to decide the outcome.
This is why bloggers will never replace journalists, or at least, I hope they never do.