{"id":795,"date":"2006-05-02T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-02T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/?p=795"},"modified":"2006-05-02T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-05-02T12:00:00","slug":"the-journalism-of-assertion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2006\/05\/02\/the-journalism-of-assertion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Journalism of Assertion"},"content":{"rendered":"

I received the following note from Peter Robson :-<\/p>\n

Hi Doug,<\/span> A quick quote –<\/span> “Blogging has replaced the journalism of verification with the journalism of assertion”<\/span> A statement lifted from a programme on political blogs, but<\/span> nevertheless relevant to blogs in general. This could give you a starting point for a blog discussion, as I notice you like to do this sort of thing. <\/span> Peter<\/p>\n

<\/span>My response to this is that blogging isn’t journalism of any recognisable variety. That might seem a strange statement because a human is writing on matters that interest them and might interest others, with an implicit individual perspective. In fact, if I’m honest I could make a very easy argument that blogging is journalism.<\/p>\n

However, it’s always seemed to me that the weblog’s natural cousin is the fanzine<\/a>. I’ve read hundreds of fanzines since I was a teenager, largely music or football-related and part of my enjoyment of them is that they take a position, rant about it and the best are hilarious into the bargain. If the writing is a bit amateurish, the facts occasionally off the mark (but only occasionally), I can make some allowances for that because of the passion of the writer. It’s a simple fact that I don’t hold a fanzine writer to the same standards that I expect from a newspaper journalist. Maybe I should, but I don’t. (However, if you want an example of a great fanzine writer, look no further<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong. I do tone it down because I work in the IT industry and I depend on a reliable stream of clients so I can’t really afford to say anything too contentious or sprinkle my output with passionate exclamations (some friends would recognise that as a euphemism for swearing – sorry Tom 😉 ). I’d be sad, however, if I was expected to produce writing of the same quality as a professional journalist. I’m sorry, but it’s not what I do and I mean this as a slightly opinionated diary with some Oracle stuff thrown in occassionally.<\/p>\n

Then I saw the following blog from Mike Ault<\/a> and, quite aside from being utterly confused at his version of Christianity, it occurred to me that it makes some very sweeping assertions and, where I might upset the odd book author, I think Mike’s opinions are dangerous, represented as fact and deeply offensive to everyone I know who’s read it (more than a dozen, so far). It’s narrow-minded, hateful nonsense like this that gives the rest of the world a bad view of Americans. It’s no-one else’s fault that they should be tarred with the same brush, but the insular nature of Mike’s views sounds awfully like anti-the-rest-of-the-world and you can’t really expect the rest of the world to react positively. Mike bends Christianity to suit his purposes as sure as fundamentalists bend Islam.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, I’m able to come back to one of the strengths of blogging, that I’ve pointed out to Peter in the past, and that is the right of instant reply. Reading the comments to Mike’s blog restores some of my faith in my fellow human beings and our higher possibilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I received the following note from Peter Robson :- Hi Doug, A quick quote – “Blogging has replaced the journalism of verification with the journalism of assertion” A statement lifted from a programme on political blogs, but nevertheless relevant to blogs in general. This could give you a starting point for a blog discussion, as… Continue reading The Journalism of Assertion<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":960,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2006\/06\/11\/harder-than-it-should-be\/","url_meta":{"origin":795,"position":0},"title":"Harder than it should be","date":"June 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm plodding away, trying to get the new blog sorted out. On the one hand, I'm fairly pleased that the bulk of the old blogs have been copied over successfully, including 1) Reader comments 2) Getting the photos moved off Blogger on to my own hostOn the other, there's still\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1308,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2007\/08\/11\/does-anyone-know-when-11g-will-be-released\/","url_meta":{"origin":795,"position":1},"title":"Does Anyone Know When 11g Will Be Released?","date":"August 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Sorry, I shouldn't be so sarcastic, but try to show some sympathy for my schedule.Thursday 9th August 22:30 BST - Go to bed, unusually early.Friday 10th 06:00 BST - Wake up, check Netvibes and noticed several 11g release blogs, including Eddie's initial notification and Howard's installation!07:30 BST - Leave for\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1419,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/10\/more-blogs-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":795,"position":2},"title":"More Blogs","date":"June 10, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It's good to see some more people joining in, particularly those I already know and admire.First up is Mark Bobak, who I've met at several conferences and, as you can tell from his first few posts, is likely to have some interesting technical tales to tell.Via Mark's blog-roll, I noticed\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1263,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2007\/05\/01\/oracle-and-community-involvement\/","url_meta":{"origin":795,"position":3},"title":"Oracle and Community Involvement","date":"May 1, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Dammit, I'm going to have to start writing about Oracle again! Even worse, it's not technical but (cough) opinion and analysis \ud83d\ude41I saw Justin Kestelyn's blog last week and my immediate reaction was slightly sympathetic, but I decided to sit back for a few days and watch the fun develop,\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 11 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1280,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/08\/blogs-oracle-com-oracle-ace-otn-does-any-of-it-matter\/","url_meta":{"origin":795,"position":4},"title":"blogs.oracle.com, Oracle Ace, OTN, does any of it matter?","date":"June 8, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I actually woke up early today to write this blog as I wanted to sleep on it first and blogging on-site is a real no-no. Anyway ...Many of you will remember the ongoing shenanigans around Justin Kestelyn's complaints about how Oracle is perceived by the Web 2.0 community. I had\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 17 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1163,"url":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/2006\/12\/16\/cocomment-and-oprofile\/","url_meta":{"origin":795,"position":5},"title":"coComment and Oprofile","date":"December 16, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'd planned a little blogging this weekend but my niece gave birth at 4:43 am today and it looks like I'll spend tomorrow driving to Aberdeen to visit her. It's only about 100 miles each way, but they're among the worst 100 miles I've ever driven \ud83d\ude41 (Anyone who's commuted\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orcldoug.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}