Blogging lesson one: Never walk away from a debate
An interesting debate is taking place today on one of the Manchester Evening News blogs. Or more accurately, a debate was started but now the conversation is all of a twitter because the unmoderated comments are sitting in the ether somewhere waiting to be published.
The spark of controversy is David Ottewell’s assertions about hyperlocal news sites;
“Too often, though, these sites disappoint. They end up simply regurgitating press releases, or ripping off stories from local newspapers, because they are one-man bands run by amateurs who don’t have the time, resources, or sometimes skills to dig out the news.
“Often you’ll find the authors of these site blur the lines between news and commentary. Instead of finding exclusives, and dealing with them responsibly (by giving right or reply, say, and checking all facts are correct), they simply put their own heavy spin on other people’s stories. This isn’t ‘doing’ news, hyperlocal or otherwise. It’s commentary. And it is far less valuable. That’s what CP Scott meant when he said “Comment is free, but facts are sacred”. Finding the news is hard. Talking about it is easy.”
Provocative stuff and one that I didn’t want to let lie unchallenged so I responded an hour ago to say;
“Well done on voicing support for the Salford Star David, hopefully the MEN will follow the story through and give it some support too. However, your (probably) link bait assertion about what hyperlocal sites do ‘too often’ shouldn’t be left unchallenged. There’s heaps of sites up and down the country doing the sort of scrutiny you should applaud and unearthing stories of genuine importance to their communities – and that’s the point ‘their communities’. Maybe those stories don’t appeal to your professionalised view of journalism? I know not. Rather than generalise about these sites, perhaps some credit where it’s due and then name names if you have examples where churnalism is going on rather than tarring everyone with the same brush.”
And this is what I’m still seeing;
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
It’s very possible and reasonable that David’s just stepped outside on his day off – perhaps he could leave a message to say so. But now the twitterati is somewhat indignant at having the opportunity for response closed off. Only it’s not. Ooops……….
(btw, any delays in posting comments on this blog will be caused by me driving home so don’t say you’ve not been warned!)
Dim Sum Digital 
Having a pop at a hard-working reporter for not checking his comments by the second is a bit harsh, Sarah. I also don’t think you can expect a blogger to post his regular movements so people know if there is going to be a delay. I suspect if you did know why there was a delay, you wouldn’t have blogged as you did. I’m sure you can remember how hard the reporters at the MEN work.
Perhaps if David had not published the comments at all then there would have been a discussion around the merits of a blog which stopped debate, but that wasn’t the case.
What’s more, there’s nothing in your post to suggest any attempt was made to find out what was going on.
A discussion about the thoughts David put forward is fine – but a post about the fact your comments weren’t published instantly?
BTW – I’m a great believer in making references to places you work or used to work when writing about them. Marc Reeves does this when writing about the Birmingham Post.
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Not having a pop – I know very well how hard David works and have constantly said, including in the post, he was probably just out and about. Unfortunately, as I’ve also posted in David’s blog, the sudden departure prompted a whole raft of tweets and comments as you probably saw. Could have been avoided by simply commenting that he had to leave the conversation.
On the ‘former MEN thing’, I decided on the year anniversary (last month) that I could probably get away with not having to do it any more, especially now the site’s been re-designed and so can’t be considered my work. I’ve moved on, they’ve moved on…….does anyone care?
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Is there a danger we lose sight of the debate that needs to be had (hyperlocal) as we focus on the mechanics of the debate? I think it’s asking a lot for someone to mention they won’t be online to publish comments straight away – but I guess what annoyed me more was the assumptions made on other blogs (not yours, I hasten to add) which assumed some sinister force at play.
On the old job point – I guess that’s down to how each person feels. I’ve not been at the Lancashire Evening Telegraph for five years now but I’d probably reference the fact I still worked there if I was to write about them.
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@Sarah. I’ve followed your blog ever since I saw you speak at a class once, and I find your posts insightful, but I can’t understand the purpose of this post. If the point was that bloggers should moderate comments quickly to stop the conversation going to Twitter, then I think you’re stating the obvious anyway. As soon as anyone posts a link on Twitter, a conversation starts there, and I’m sure you know that. I don’t see what was ‘oops’ about it either, because a good conversation has continued on the original blog anyway. To me it looks as though a bunch of people on Twitter thought their opinions were so important, they couldn’t wait for a comment to be moderated, but also couldn’t be bothered to find out why the comments hadn’t been moderated. Those people have also failed to join in the debate since or acknowledged the reason for the delay in moderation. I think the only “oops” belongs with the people who made a fuss in the first place. My question to you would be: What would you have done differently?
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Hi Dan, thanks for following my blog – that’s good to hear. The point of the post was to detail what and happened – what David said, the comment I posted and to open up the possibility of another conversational space. At the time of posting, people were saying they were unable to comment on the original post. Time then moved on and made this post redundant. There’s since been so many other spaces opened up, that anyone with something to say on the issue is spoiled for choice. Sadly, the debate has been moved away from the one I was interested in – about hyperlocals – but there you go, that’s how it happens sometimes.
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Thanks Sarah. But didn’t you cause that shift from hyperlocal discussion to discussion about blogging behaviour/conspiracy theories (I know you didn’t get involved in the conspiracy theories) by implying the blogger had done something wrong? I agree the debate has moved on since, probably because David Ottewell has been so open and spent time talking on other platforms, not just his own. It just felt as thought a lot of people got wound up over nothing, after all all the comments were published.
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No I don’t think I did – just look at how few comments have been posted here. The conversation didn’t happen here (and actually wasn’t initiated by me if anyone checks the chronology of events). The most comments seem to have been made on Louise Bolotin’s blog – although I stand to be corrected on that as I haven’t actually gone round adding them all up in the various places.
When everything’s calmed down a bit, perhaps we can return to the issue in hand for a proper debate about hyperlocals. In fact if you’ve any ideas on how best that debate should be framed and conducted, please do let me know.
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I think the debate would have been best framed by people not getting over excited on Twitter just because their opinions hadn’t been published instantly. So what if there is a bit of a delay? Focus on the issue of the debate, rather than the speed of the debate. I think that is where everyone went wrong on Friday. Comments posted on your blog don’t change the fact you tried to suggest David had done something wrong – the conversation continued to take place on Twitter. You could say you celebrated the indignation, but failed to update your blog when David said why he’d been busy. But that’s just my opinion.
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Sorry I wasn’t talking about what has already gone on – I was suggesting we consider how best to look at the hyperlocal issue. To be correct – I never said David wasn’t anything other than probably just busy as well as putting forward a suggestion that he might be away from his desk in order to attempt to calm things on Twitter – therefore no update required from me. As I mentioned to David on his blog, the entire problem could have easily been avoided by simply saying he was going away for a while, because that’s the sort of thing you do if you’re in the middle of a heated conversation. I think the whole Twitter debate has well and truly run its course – in fact I notice other bloggers have even closed off their comments because it’s getting so tedious. I’d rather not do that, so let’s talk about hyperlocal and the best way to engage people in that debate.
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