The people involved in Editorial Intelligence are often guilty of disappearing up their own backsides; they're the archetypal Hamstead trendies who flocked to Blair in the 90s & who now murmur that perhaps Cameron does have a liberal side.
However, they held a discussion at the Royal Society of Arts in London last week on the power & influence of commentators. A good part of the debate was also given over to blogs & their growing influence (http://cdn3.libsyn.com/ei/ei-power-of-the-commentariat.mp3 ).
Simon Jenkins' haughty disdain for blogs ("diarrhoea" & "crap" are his considered opinions on the likes of yours truly) is both pitiable & darkly amusing; indeed, Jenkins' olfactory criticisms are put in their proper perspective by an audience member who likens the critics of blogs to eighteenth-century Whigs who condemned pamphleteers. Ex-New Statesman editor John Kaempfner correctly notes that most political blogs are obsessed with Westminster minutiae, but overlooks the blogs around the country that monitor politics in their locality, Liverpool SubCulture being an obvious example (http://liverpoolsubculture.blogspot.com/ ).
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