Tim Dunlop signs off from Blogocracy

We’re a little late to post about this, but I can’t let Tim Dunlop’s resignation from his New Ltd blog Blogocracy pass without comment. There were no fireworks, just a goodbye in his weekly “Week end talkback” post to the blog.

Coming on the heels of Marieke Hardy’s decision to put Reasons You Will Hate Me on hiatus earlier this year, the Australian blogosphere has now lost a couple of its most popular bloggers.

The final post on Blogocracy – posted on Friday – says Tim will be working on slower moving things for a while, including writing a book. I’m not sure whether he’ll continue to write for The Oz or News Ltd but it wouldn’t surprise me if they try to keep him as a freelance contributor in some way.

I’m sure everyone in the Australian political blogosphere is well aware of Tim’s history as a blogger. Kudos must go to him for maintaining a very healthy blog hosted by News Ltd – who continue to display a very antagonistic attitude towards blogging. If you’re not familiar with the background to the News Ltd war on the blogosphere, Margaret Simon’s article, Bloggers: Rupert was right to worry, recaps a few of the low points (can anyone forget “We understand Newspoll because we own it” or perhaps the lowest point to date when they deleted one of Tim’s posts on Blogocracy which was critical of The Oz’s editorial stance on blogs).

Interestingly, at the time that the higher-ups at News decided to wield the axe and censor Blogocracy, Tim assured his readers that he’d be staying where he was and would post a follow up explaining what had gone down. As far as I’m aware, that post was never forthcoming. I hope one day we’ll get to hear Tim’s thoughts on what it was like to be a high profile blogger for a news outlet which continues to attack the blogosphere as fundamentally illegitimate.

The loss of Blogocracy will leave a hole in the News Ltd blogging stable – it will be very interesting to see who if anyone will step up to the plate. Most mainstream media outlets tend to stick to the familiar turf of having their editorial staff do blogs “on the side” rather than hiring established bloggers. Given the Oz’s track record of antagonism (not to mention censorship) while they certainly may lure an established blogger to take Blogocracy’s place, it won’t be without some serious consideration on the part of the blogger.

Best of luck to Tim in his future endeavours, and I hope we’ll see you back blogging at some point in the future.