Why Kate Adie hates blogs

A gloriously sunny day in Stockholm was drawing to an end and I was enjoying dinner on a restaurant ship cruising to the historic Royal Palace at Drottningholm. I spent the evening admiring the scenery, enjying the food and arguing with Kate Adie about the merits of blogging.

Kate is instantly recognisable to most Brits and a household name. The only way I can think of describing her is as a sort of cross between Dan Rather and Dame Flora Robson as Lady Bracknell.

During her quarter of a century as the BBC’s chief correspondent, Kate reported from many of the world’s trouble spots.

There used to be a joke among British servicemen that when Kate arrived in town, they knew something serious was happening. To TV viewers she became famous as much for her steely gaze and no nonsense style of questioning, as the trademark flak jacket she wore when filing from war zones.

There I was tucking into my shrimp salad and listening to one of my heroes, a living icon of broadcast journalism in Britain, dismissing my blog as “egotistical nonsense.” She didn’t actually mention my blog, of course, but that is how it felt.

Emboldened perhaps by the Chardonnay, I pointed out that although my audience can be measured in the dozens, there is interest nonetheless in what I have to say. I know I have an audience because they post comments on my blog and send me e-mails.

Tools like Statcounter tell me where my audience is based, how long they spend on the site and whether they come back again.

By the time our pudding arrived, Kate had admitted that what she really objected to was not so much weblogs, as the idea that journalists should spend their "precious time" writing about how they obtained their stories:

“You are blogging to a peer group - that's all right - I can understand there is a demand for that. But journalists shouldn't have any time to blog - there are too many stories waiting to be told!”

The other thing that Kate objects to is BBC managers who blog during working hours. Their weblogs, she maintains, are proof they have nothing better to do.

I am not mentioning any names.

The one thing Kate and I did agree on was that radio is having, in her words, “a wonderful resurgence.” As the audiences for TV news tumble, the numbers turning to the radio for in-depth analysis are growing.

Kate told me that in the early 1980s, something like 15 million viewers watched the BBC’s flagship evening news bulletin. Nowadays, the figure is closer to three million.

Comments

[Sally Lomax]

Blogs are certainly a source of research for journalists, and a way of writing the bits that doen't get put into newpapers as well as some of the things that do. They are often well written and are a great thing of the modern day. I wouldn't be without mine.
p.s. I'm sure that Pepys had the same thing in the 17th Cnetury...

[Paul Bradshaw]

Blogs can be war coverage too - just look at Kevin Sites. Kate seems to assume that 'blogging' is automatically ego-massage, when 'blogging' is just a platform, which can be used in a variety of ways (and of course, some people don't use it effectively).

I'm sure many newspaper reporters sneered at television when it first came out, saying: "journalists shouldn't have time to set up all that gear just for a five minute report, when there are too many stories to be told!" Kate could tell us so much more in a blog about the stories that TV doesn't have time for. She could show those reporters just how much they are wasting their time, and what they should be doing with their blogs.

[A.]

There are indeed too many stories to be told - too many to fit within the limits of current BBC programming, too many to be told well in the two minutes a journalist has to tell the whole story succinctly and with great detail; too many to be researched with sufficient depth to match the high standards required for broadcast/representation under the corporation's banner. Blogging allows more tales to be told, and from a more personal angle, than ever before.

[Tuija Aalto]

Umm, rather arrogant, I dare say. She might as well have said: "journalists shouldn't have any time to listen - there are too many stories waiting to be told!”

[Alfred Hermida]

Kate Adie is entitled to her personal opinion about blogs. But any commentary should be based on facts and a knowledge of the subject. Instead Kate Adie shows a lack of understanding of blogging and how it can be as a form of journalism, just as valid as a traditional print news story or a radio despatch. In some ways, the BBC programme she presents, From Our Own Correspondent, can be seen as a form of audio blogging by reporters, though it lacks the interactivity of blogs.