As tempted as I am simply to declare the newest Australian political blog open and get on with it, it might serve to consider for a moment what its purpose is. Beyond, you know, blogging about politics and so on.
Apart from immediacy, which doesn’t as a rule lend itself to quality analysis, new media’s primary contribution to political journalism and commentary is interactivity. It replaces that good old mainstream media model that most of us grew up with, in which a journalist hands down his or her opinions as authoritative commentary to a mass audience aggregated for the purposes of advertisers, with a dialogue. Or, more correctly, a debate, in which the journalist, commentator or originator is merely one voice among many, albeit a privileged one.
At its best, this model isn’t only, or even mainly, about democratising media – although that’s important – but about a better quality debate, in which participants might – horror of horrors – broaden their understanding of issues, via diverse voices and perspectives that aren’t available in any one media source, no matter how good. It’s about a community that – cliché alert – is literally more than the sum of its parts.
And, yep, the crucial caveat is “at its best”. Blogs are not always, or perhaps even often, at their best or anything resembling it, and political blogs are no different to most others. For what it’s worth, I’ve found through some years in both amateur and professional capacities that the secret to a genuinely useful blog lies in keeping something approaching an open mind. That tends to improve both the quality of debate, and the quality of one’s own contributions to the debate.
Easier said than done, of course, and I personally can’t wait to have that line thrown back at me in some later discussion.
The Stump will feature a wide range of contributors. Crikey regulars Guy Rundle, Charles Richardson and Sophie Black and editor Jonathan Green will be here, as well as another Crikey blogger, former senator Andrew Bartlett. Paul Comrie-Thomson, Phillip Adams, Chris Berg, Eva Cox, Mel Campbell and Jason Soon will also contribute. That’s just for starters.
This is a fascinating period as much in policy as in politics. Rarely has a government looked so set for a long stay at the crease as this mob, but the policy debate across a range of key issues is more fluid than it has been since, probably, the 1980s or even earlier. The orthodoxy at the heart of economic policy in Anglophone countries for three decades is under challenge; climate change poses an almost unique international dilemma; even the global institutional architecture is undergoing significant change, and having dodged the bullet of global recession, getting the recovery right looks like an even more difficult task for Australian policymakers. Plus there’s the small matter of Kevin Rudd’s reform agenda in areas like federal relations, the Public Service, defence and taxation.
Oh, and did I mention that the commercial media, which still provides much of the backbone of political coverage in Australia, is having a few problems itself?
Not, one rushes to add, that The Stump will be exclusively about hi-fibre, good-for-your-insides wonkery… It’ll take a while to find out what the character of this blog will be, but that’s part of the fun, and it’s a process that everyone participating here can play a role in.
So – off you go.
CRIKEY SAYS: Message to canny readers. You will notice that there are actually blog posts that appear below this “inaugural” Stump post. Andrew Bartlett — who previously had a blog on Crikey — will now be blogging for The Stump, so we’ve also brought his earlier blog posts across to this new home.
10 Comments
Umm, Bernard, have you noticed a slight gender imbalance amongst the contributors to your new politics blog? Not one woman amongst them, as far as I can see.
Now, who was it again who railed against the lack of oestrogen in political repartee recently? Oh, that’s right, Crikey! Hmmm, I even outed myself in comments at the time as a former political blogger, one of the first women to take up the cudgels a very long time ago, over at LaborFirst. But no, all I heard in return was the sound of crickets.
No wonder Jack the Insiders blog over at The Oz attracts way more women, because he cares about our opinions. Unlike Crikey, it seems to me, who only appears to feign caring, and then goes back to the frat boy style they are so renowned for.
Good luck, anyway. However, don’t be surprised if the stats wrt female contributors are anaemic.
And no, I’m not grumpy because I wasn’t offered a spot. I’m grumpy because you haven’t offered a spot to any female, not even any of those who apparently work for Crikey already. Shame, Crikey, shame!
So is The Stump stillborn? A juvenile reaction to The Punch? No comments. No women. No celebrities. No pollies. No community leaders. Why would I bother coming here when I can go to Larvatus Prodeo…?
Jason Soon and Chris Berg have their own blogs, the have the AFR and with all that they’ve still failed to demonstrate any sort of fibre – intellectual, moral or even granular – except to bring up crib notes from Uncle Milty from the very different world of 30 years ago, dusted with sarcasm that they think makes them witty. You do realise that Guy Rundle only nominated those turkeys as thinkers because they were easybeats. And surely you also realise that those titles from CIS are absolutely bogus.
I can only guess that The Stump is so named because it is the lifeless remnant of something that was once fruitful, strong, and in the way of somebody after a quick buck. Just because Concept Economics rendered these bums unemployable doesn’t make you obliged to pick them off the street: put their noses to the grindstone of real issues in the polity and the economy rather than letting them have their heads, and edit out the sarcasm and fling their material back in their faces, and do not pay them until they come up with something thoughtful and considered for a change. Or, just get rid of them.
What you’ve done here is basically what you did with ‘The Eye’, or with the revisions to ‘The Bulletin’ over the last twenty years of its life – jot down a few names off the top of your head (Phillip Adams, the last Australian leftie who hasn’t joined the board of Quadrant?), emphasise the “for thinking people” marketing – then, when it becomes so lame that it stops dead, you’ll complain that there’s no market for serious and intelligent journalism.
Well, I’ve not been interested to say anything thus far in relation to your introduction, apart from, yes indeedy, it’s an interesting time in politics. For the tragics among us, it’s always an interesting time in politics. Alexander seems to have missed Victoria posting on the gender issue. Could, of course, be a matter of timing.
What are you intending in relation to this blog?
Whoo, now there’s an interesting response from Andrew Elder. I’ll tell you both something for nothing. I read both of you. Am I going to choose one over the other. No, because I’m interested in alternative views of what’s happening politically. And I’ll tell you something else for nothing. Ad Astra’s site, Political Sword, is far and away the most engaged site in terms of people actually thinking about what’s going on, IMO.
Andrew Elder is right. Where’s the edge? I thought blogs were supposed to be the edgy end of journalism, not just the same old, same old, but online.
If Crikey wants to be at the bleeding edge then they had better ditch the AFR and CIS types and go find some fresh voices. They are out there. You just have to look a bit harder.
I wish everyone here would stop complaining about this blog. Let’s be honest. Only white males from Melbourne have anything sensible to say about politics. Chicks, niggers et al should just shut up and read.
@Harry “Snapper” Organs: Actually, I was agreeing with Victoria’s point that there were no women bloggers here.
@Andrew Elder: Great summary of what’s going on here.
I don’t understand why this (The Stump) needs to exist. “An informed, caffeinated, wonkish, opinionated and engagingly discursive look at the world of politics, policy and public life — in Australia and beyond and from every which side of the ideological divide” was what I thought Crikey itself (i.e. the e-mail and main web site) was supposed to do.
well yes, but this is the short-order version.