Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of American blogger Matt Drudge breaking the story of the Monica Lewinsky affair. Things were never the same again. The world was rocked to its foundations by the astounding news that older men like getting their knobs sucked by younger women.
There were many crimes committed by the Clinton Whitehouse. However, I don’t think there are many sane people in the world who think Bill getting a nosh from an intern was one of them. Or at least one of the major ones. How the odd happy finish from Monica impeded the Clinton presidency before right-wing prurience attempted to derail it has never been adequately explained to me.
Still, we are where we are. In his paean to Drudge, Guido Fawkes somewhat prematurely hails his hero’s coup as the end ‘once and for all [of] the gate-keeper ability, if not the mentality, of the mainstream media elite’.
Guido’s love letter to his mentor is interesting in that it fails to offer a qualitative judgement of how things have changed. How much Drudge earns and where that income allows him to live seem to be the essential yardsticks rather than any explicit estimate of whether what he produces is any good. That people in large numbers are prepared to consume a product is not always the most reliable gauge of quality. It’s a thought that’s kept the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Bernard Matthews and Noel Edmonds warm for many a year.
It’s also interesting how little change has actually been brought about despite the breathless talk of a paradigm shift. Guido talks of an ‘mainstream media elite’ without seemingly being overtly aware that he and his role model have had to largely appropriate that elite’s methods to gain what they judge and measure as success. Is there any true innovation going on?
Guido exhorts would-be one-man newsmakers to ‘go get the story’ but beyond the phone calls he makes which (unwittingly or not) come across as the transcripts of a radio show prankster, it’s difficult to see what ‘getting’ of stories he actually does. Drudge’s big moment, let us not forget, was publishing a story that a mainstream magazine had baulked at.
Guido, between rare forays into editorial, presents a diet largely consisting of mainstream scraps and off-cuts. Happy (for Guido) coincidence dictated that he also made his name by publishing a story of where another prominent politician (in this case John Prescott) was putting his penis. A story, like Drudge’s breakthrough, that the mainstream media elites had deemed unpublishable.
As such, you be forgiven for regarding both Guido and Drudge as mere conduits; alternative venues for other people’s legwork. There’s very little ‘making’ beyond the ability to string a sentence together. It’s repetition and reaction. It’s blogging.
Guido talks of his contact with and reliance on mainstream journalists but it seems to me more of a parasitic relationship rather than a symbiotic one. Like the unfortunate Monica, it sounds like he’s had to suck a lot of cock to gain his notoriety. The loyalty of the press can be rented but not bought.
And like an exploited woman who talks of empowerment when really she’s just being used, I wonder if Guido is fooling anyone else but himself. Guido’s medium is the message - journalists are happy to report on his antics and caperings rather than highlight what he’s saying. You can see why the likes of the Guardian’s Michael White might snigger at him - the lone wannabe walking the high wire without a safety net.
I’d argue that all we’re seeing is the emergence of another albeit smaller elite - not the tearing down of some great edifice. Guido is nothing if not just another monied Westminster villager only with a maverick spin. He gives off the same air of the privileged insider privy to access and esoteric knowledge forbidden to the rest of us.
But this new elite lacks the inherent quality control (sub-editing for instance) that make the ‘mainstream media elite’ even vaguely tolerable. It’s just as well that Guido gives his stuff away for free because you wonder how loyal his readership would be if he was charging for it.
Of course, Guido earns his money indirectly via advertising on his blog. He doesn’t or daren’t put a price or a value (financial or qualitative) on his product. It’s a new model, if only a cheap knock-off of the old model, down-sized and the corners cut. Despite copious evidence to the contrary, I sincerely wonder if Guido is truly happy about that.
Like a self-taught painter trying to copy an old master, surely it’s a melancholy matter of pale imitation and disappointment.
(cross-posted from Chicken Backup)
[...] McKeating of Chicken Yoghurt offers a counterpoint to Guido’s love letter to Drudge over on Liberal Conspiracy. I can’t read such a superb introduction without passing it on: Yesterday marked the tenth [...]
Lay off Noel, you bastard.
And you ought to be thankful we’ve got a former Young Conservative Margaux-slurping hedge fund manager to take on the elites of this country, you ungrateful shmuck.
Scrutiny of politicians is a fairly unalloyed good thing and part of a real democracy. That’s what Guido does. I’m a satisfied customer.
Not sure what your motivation is for this article? When the Tories get in, you could write a similar argument. It would be an argument against democracy.
Scrutiny of politicians is a fairly unalloyed good thing and part of a real democracy.
Where did I say it isn’t?
And that’s right, I question a blogger’s methods and impact and I’m arguing against democracy. Well done.
I would agree with this article in so far as I think we are seeing the emergence of a new elite, namely a small group of uber-bloggers who, by sheer virtue of their success and the size of their blogs, are now effectively a part of the mainstream political media, without necessarily signing-up to its herd mentality or some of its more arcane practices.
On the whole, though, I think Justin is being, as they say, a bit harsh.
Something that everyone has missed in the interview Guido gave the Today programme yesterday is that he almost admitted he sells his best stories to the tabloids first before blogging them - something I heard from somebody in a Sunday’s newsroom a while back. He would not want his readers to know that.
Listen to the interview again and you can see he changed tack when he realised he was making an admission that would dismay his fans and euphemistically said he “coordinated” stories.
He was torn by wanting to boast that he gets the scoops but not wanting to admit that he gives it to the readers of the “Dead Tree Press” before his own readers.
The author suggests that relative to the mainstream media Guido has no quality control, but can’t actually summon up an actual example of false reporting.
The author wants things both ways.
1. Guido is popular, but has no impact… (this article is about someone not making an impact haha)
2. Guido is an insider not that he ever breaks any stories…
3. You even appear to attack the fact that the blog is free!
4. Guido is being used, but channels his stories through the MSM. Square that circle.
I think that you misunderstand his agenda. Sure he wants to run a successful media outlet, but I think he is far more interested in pulling politicians and especially Lefties down a few pegs. If he has a BIG story, he’ll break it on his blog, but make sure it goes mainstream too. The upshot is that unrepentant, arrogant shits like Hain remain in the public eye for weeks as there’s always a new thread to follow - and that’s a good thing. All hail, Guido.
>can’t actually summon up an actual example of false reporting
You mean like the time he suggested Mark Oaten was a paedophile? Stuff like that?
‘You mean like the time he suggested Mark Oaten was a paedophile’
He didn’t, but we’ve been around that circle before?
There were many crimes committed by the Clinton Whitehouse. However, I don’t think there are many sane people in the world who think Bill getting a nosh from an intern was one of them. Or at least one of the major ones. How the odd happy finish from Monica impeded the Clinton presidency before right-wing prurience attempted to derail it has never been adequately explained to me.
I have to admit this bit did make me laugh out loud, as JMcK’s writing frequently does, but the answer is pretty obvious: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.” Or is lying to the American public no longer to be considered a “major crime?”
>but we’ve been around that circle before
I’ve no idea where you’ve been Dominic, but I’m not going to debate a matter of fact with you. You believe whatever you like. Goodbye.
Praguetory, Guido has got stories wrong on so many occasions it would be difficult to list them all. There was that nonsense for instance last year about there being a Downing Street database to do with cash for honours which it turned out didn’t exist. Chris Paul (http://chrispaul-labouroflove.blogspot.com/), as partisan as he is, usually does a decent job of tackling the stories he and Iain Dale especially get wrong.
The question is whether he’ll be doing the same to the “unrepentant, arrogant shits” in the Tories if they do get into power. Of course, when he was quite right to bring up the question of Lord Ashcroft’s tax status you and others jumped on him for doing so. Little wonder then if he decides not to bother.
‘Chris Paul (http://chrispaul-labouroflove.blogspot.com/), as partisan as he is, usually does a decent job of tackling the stories he and Iain Dale especially get wrong’
There are two things Chris Paul does. One is defending the indefensible such as when he defended electoral fraud (if it keeps out the Tories). The other is to make himself (and by association all Labour loyalists) look ridiculous and hence I support all publicity for his site.
Or is lying to the American public no longer to be considered a “major crime?”
Technically you’re right Paul, but he was lying trying to cover up getting blowjobs from somebody other than his wife - I don’t imagine he was the first - not about some major issue of state for which he should have been rightly lambasted.
That’s just it. Guido will retire to his kids when Cameron sweeps to power. That has always been Guido’s plan. He always been up-front about it. The guy hates Gordon Brown - that pretty much sums him up.
Guido is a tart. But that doesn’t mean he’s an idiot.
I think the biggest problem for the Tory blogosphere is that 99% of the populous doesn’t read blogs - they don’t even watch Newsnight or listen to the Today programme, so whether Guido has profile or not, he’s just pissing in the wind compared to, say; the influence of the political editor of The Scum.
Let’s keep it all in perspective, people.
As such, you be forgiven for regarding both Guido and Drudge as mere conduits; alternative venues for other people’s legwork.
It’s more than that. Given that he relies on exclusives like a fish relies on air - Guido is actually much more susceptible to someone’s agenda. Of course, he may judge that agenda to suit his own, but he can easily be manipulated by someone.
In the case of Prescott, who knows if the someone who decided to leak the information wanted to back-stab him for political purposes? A rival… or even a friend. Who knows. Who cares… right?
I manipulate Recess Monkey.
I manipulate Justin McKeating into writing about me.
“Put your hands in the air!….
….for Pik Botha!”
- direct link -
How much did Drudge change?