As tempted as I am simply to declare Australia’s newest political blog The Stump open and get on with it, it might serve to consider for a moment what its purpose is. Beyond, you know, blogging about politics and so on.
Apart from immediacy, which doesn’t as a rule lend itself to quality analysis, new media’s primary contribution to political journalism and commentary is interactivity. It replaces that good old mainstream media model that most of us grew up with, in which a journalist hands down his or her opinions as authoritative commentary to a mass audience aggregated for the purposes of advertisers, with a dialogue. Or, more correctly, a debate, in which the journalist, commentator or originator is merely one voice among many, albeit a privileged one.
At its best, this model isn’t only, or even mainly, about democratising media – although that’s important – but about a better quality debate, in which participants might – horror of horrors – broaden their understanding of issues, via diverse voices and perspectives that aren’t available in any one media source, no matter how good. It’s about a community that – cliché alert – is literally more than the sum of its parts.
And, yep, the crucial caveat is “at its best”. Blogs are not always, or perhaps even often, at their best or anything resembling it, and political blogs are no different to most others. For what it’s worth, I’ve found through some years in both amateur and professional capacities that the secret to a genuinely useful blog lies in keeping something approaching an open mind. That tends to improve both the quality of debate, and the quality of one’s own contributions to the debate.
Easier said than done, of course, and I personally can’t wait to have that line thrown back at me in some later discussion.
The Stump will feature a wide range of contributors. Crikey regulars Guy Rundle, Charles Richardson and Andrew Crook and editor Jonathan Green will be here, as well as another Crikey blogger, former senator Andrew Bartlett. Paul Comrie-Thomson, Chris Berg and Jason Soon will also contribute. That’s just for starters.
This is a fascinating period as much in policy as in politics. Rarely has a government looked so set for a long stay at the crease as this mob, but the policy debate across a range of key issues is more fluid than it has been since, probably, the 1980s or even earlier. The orthodoxy at the heart of economic policy in Anglophone countries for three decades is under challenge; climate change poses an almost unique international dilemma; even the global institutional architecture is undergoing significant change, and having dodged the bullet of global recession, getting the recovery right looks like an even more difficult task for Australian policymakers. Plus there’s the small matter of Kevin Rudd’s reform agenda in areas like federal relations, the Public Service, defence and taxation.
Oh, and did I mention that the commercial media, which still provides much of the backbone of political coverage in Australia, is having a few problems itself?
Not, one rushes to add, that The Stump will be exclusively about hi-fibre, good-for-your-insides wonkery… It’ll take a while to find out what the character of this blog will be, but that’s part of the fun, and it’s a process that everyone participating here can play a role in.
So — off you go. Join The Stump here.
What a great line-up of political journalists. I hope they are all deeply in touch with their feminine side though, because there certainly aren’t many women among them.
What was that campaign Crikey ran a while ago? Where were all the Crikey women subscribers etc. Crikey being such a blokey place?
1. why is there a separate crikey blog – were there insufficient responses to the the standard crikey subscription, it looks at first blush like a vigorous flogging of the b.keane capability (absorb the same amount, crap on more).
2. and despite what b.keane says, unless anyone in a ministerial office or lobbyist exec suite cares to routinely monitor this outpouring from the unwashed uninformed blogetariate, it will all pass with less inpact than bill gates’ flatulence or turnbull’s tweets.
3. please set fire to rundle, who might pretend to be the addled son of HST but has no equivalent skill as a scribe, he bulks out your content in no different ways to the fillers of Fairfax.
Why a new blog about politics? I mean all of your stories have comments and are de-facto blogs already. What is the logic? Your article above certainly didn’t give a very solid explanation.
As an outsider, Crikey sometimes appears fractured and unfocussed. Often the content is informing and worth a read, but the site looks as if it has been designed by committee—a committee in which everyone’s ideas are implemented.
So now I read the news that Crikey, which sells itself as a political blog, is now going to get a real political sub-blog. Who had the rotating chairmanship when that was decided?
You’re going to lose readers (at least one, anyway) if you continue this “more is better” approach. Which would be a shame.
Well said Judy HH. It certainly looks remarkably blokey to me as well.
Hopefully, this is just a endearingly shambolic start to Crikey’s new “political blog”.
No doubt all those female pundits and journo’s are just hiding in the closet, so we’ll appreciate them all the more when they burst forth………Errr, we will won’t we Crikey?
Down with the naysayers!
The one thing that I do envy about the American political scene is that there is a vibrant eco-system of political, policy, etc, blogs actively discussing ideas and events on a daily basis. But these blogs are not run by billion dollar corporations, they’re much smaller operations and offer a wide range of views on many topics.
We can only hope that other independent journalists and enthusiasts will be inspired by the offerings of Crikey and start their own blogs — if for no other reason than to offer a different point of view — so that Australia can have more vibrant policy discussions in the future.
Onwards and upwards!