No Janet, You “Blog Off” – In Defence of Bloggers.

Janet Street-Porter has written an article in today’s Independent on Sunday castigating those who keep blogs as “socially inept” and un-cultured “couch potatoes“,  who “can’t use a three syllable word“.   She goes on to say that “99 per cent of blogs just soak up your valuable time without giving anything meaningful back in return“, and that “most blogs are about as interesting as watching cheese develop mould“.  

Coming from one who recently participated so enthusiastically in the mind-numbingly inane ‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here’, this is rich indeed.  I can only marvel at the temerity of the woman.   Most blogs I have read are a damn sight more interesting than watching some third-rate ‘celebrity’ eat slugs in the Australian outback, and are a great deal more intellectually challenging.    Through her appearance on the programme she has no doubt made a small fortune from the ‘socially inept couch potatoes’ that she now rails against, and has made a contribution to the dumbing down of popular culture.  Her hypocrisy is simply stunning.

It is through the failures and omissions of those such as Janet Street-Porter in the mainstream media that bloggers are becoming an ever-increasing source of news and information to millions of people.  Who, for example, in the mainstream media has written about Benazir Bhutto’s incredible allegation that Osama Bin Laden has been murdered?  Not Janet obviously, as she has been too busy writing about a divorcee who had her shoes and underwear incinerated! 

Janet writes that blogs are as interesting as watching cheese develop mould.  She fails to recognise that the growing of mould on cheese is an absolutely fascinating process, the observance of which lead to the discovery of Penicillin.  Blogs, at their best, are an antidote to the corporate propaganda inherent in the mainstream media Janet so handsomely profits from.    As a part of the bacteria that infects the body of the media, it is understandable I suppose why Ms Street-Porter would like we antibacterial agents to “blog off!”.   Her comments are nothing but the anguished howl of one who sees her privileged status under threat.   We bloggers are here to stay, whether she like it or not.  

Instead of moaning about bloggers, she could try not reading them.  Blogs are quite easy to avoid, unlike certain reality TV shows I could mention.

   

~ by blacksheepdiarist on January 6, 2008.