. It's a useful survey of the current blogosphere, or at least its noisiest and most colourful elements, with a concentration on Cameron Slater and Martyn Bradbury.
The blogosphere bites back
The blogosphere has bitten back, seeing Milne's article as inaccurate and wrongly-focused. Cameron Slater takes issue with some of the reportage and portrayals - see:
. David Farrar also took part in interviews for the article, but says his statements didn't seem to fit with Milne's focus on colourful personalities and increased viciousness - see:
Rob Salmond also missed out on a mention, but explains why he blogs and how he's more interested in using blogging for real elite influence rather than reaching a large audience - see:
The most interesting element of Milne's article is the implicit role that bloggers play in acting almost as proxies for the political parties and politicians they are aligned to. The clear allusion is that blogs like Whaleoil are doing the bidding of the National Government, and Judith Collins and John Key in particular, while Martyn Bradbury's Dailly Blog is closely connected to Labour and David Cunliffe. Milne talked to various politicians on this angle - for instance: 'Politicians can "manage the message" by talking through politically affiliated bloggers, says [Grant] Robertson - whether that be Key talking to Slater, or Cunliffe talking to Bradbury'. And Bradbury himself is reported as saying that he talks to Cunliffe regularly. It's for this reason Cameron Slater has blogged to say,
. And this all relates to ongoing questions about the opaque relationship between various blogs and politicians, as discussed in an earlier column of mine,
In Milne's article another form of new media is mentioned as a rival to the blogosphere - Twitter. Steven Joyce declares that 2014 could instead be the year of Twitter: 'My personal view is that a bigger influence this year will be the expansion of politicians talking directly to the people through the likes of Twitter and Instagram. That will be the story of 2014'. He also says that 'The shorter methods of communication like Twitter have definitely got their place and are developing quickly'.
Blogger Cameron Slater. Photo / David White
For the best analysis of politicos on Twitter, it's worth reading Matthew Beveridge's evaluations on his blog. The latest MP to go under the microscope is
. Lole-Taylor is struggling with Twitter due to a parody account impersonating her, with some readers having trouble distinguishing between the two - see Felix Marwick's
Meanwhile, the most recent scrutiny of New Zealand's mainstream media comes in the Reporters without Borders' annual World Press Freedom Index 2014, in which New Zealand still compares well, but has dropped a place in the rankings. The explanation is: 'In New Zealand, the interception of reporter Jon Stephenson's metadata by the military, which thought his articles were overly critical, and the release of journalist Andrea Vance's phone records to a leak investigation is indicative of growing government mistrust of the media and their watchdog role' - see the
Gordon Campbell reports on the major changes occurring at Scoop Media, including his own ascension to the editor's position, and the promise of much better content and style coming to the fledging website - see: On further changes at Scoop.
There are also plenty of other online based election-related projects popping up at the moment. One potentially useful one is the Politicheck NZ.
In a similar manner, I'm currently trying to set up an online-based election project involving a number of scholars, titled the Otago Elections Project. You can read my article in the latest Otago University magazine: Election engagement. The project will include a number of digital activities and projects, including the New Zealand Election Ads website, created by Ashley Murchison.
Finally, for the most amusing response to the Herald's feature on bloggers, see Scott Yorke's blog post Jonathan Milne, I will destroy you!.
