Bring on the building blogs

If taken in earnest, blogging provides a generous platform for research. Generous because responses are free, and, while the “research” can hardly be called scientific, it is a toe-tip test of the pool’s swimmability.

In my relatively short (though, may I say, rather spectacular) adventure in the blogosphere, I have gained insights I would have missed elsewhere. And they’re worth every letter. They extend the value of what we do here beyond being simple web-logs or cyber-diaries.

Blogging on Thought Leader is mostly serious stuff — which means we should guard against becoming too stodgy or self-important. This thing is moving fast, which means we must keep pace. I have kept all comments my posts have received in folders. Some have even generated ongoing e-correspondence. It is akin to my old tatty cuttings books, which I have maintained since my first news stories were published in the Pretoria News in 1976.

Serious blogging is now commonplace and TL stands in contrast to most other blog sites where content is little more than cyber-bellybutton gazing or e-wanking. But, hey, that’s also okay — it keeps the e-anklebiters in the sandpit, nice & safe & occupied. It even provides an outlet for the annoying drone of their rap-like rhymes and kindergarten beatitudes.

My own circumstances, though, have demonstrated just how rapidly The Blog is maturing. This thing is evolving in seven-league boots. But, as with every evolutionary leap in whatever field, it carries with it the seeds of its own destruction.

When I criticised management practices and the myopia of some decisions taken at Sowetan, the reaction was, quite frankly, out of all proportion to what had been said. What surprised me, though, was how narrow-minded and conservative many journalists still are. That and how hypocritical it is to insist that it’s fine and dandy for the media to hold all and sundry up to public scrutiny … except itself. To my surprise, some of the most conservative views about calling your employer to account in public came from younger journalists.

As blogged before, I am passionately pro-criticism — as long as it is constructive, considered, balanced and true. If we as journalists — or bloggalists — cannot heed criticism and winnow the wheat from the chaff, we should be hanged, drawn, quartered and have the leftovers fed to little piggies so they become big piggies makin’ bacon for breakfast sarmies.

That is what is so refreshing about blogging. Everything is open to ruthless examination and uncompromising criticism. It is nice (as in “Mrs Baker down at the library is nice”) to be complimented, but it is valuable to be criticised (as in “critique”). Besides, any freelancer knows how lonely it gets on your own.

I remain convinced — supported by the latest riot of resignations — that the chief protagonist in getting me suspended from Sowetan and then fired for blogging, overreacted and behaved both unprofessionally and childishly. That his actions have heaped more disrepute on “the company” than my blog ever did, and have indeed directly caused havoc at what is otherwise a fine newspaper, only underline the immaturity of journalists who should know better.

Some media watchers have also suggested the case highlights the problems around quality leadership in black journalism. Leadership in journalism has always been a problem. Only rarely do good journalists become good leaders. Few professions so prove the veracity of the Peter Principle as does journalism. However, I sense the patriarchal and uncompromisingly hierarchical cultures from which so many of my black colleagues originate doubles their risk. Just because you’re the top dog don’t mean you are above criticism, dawg.

Be that as it may, how a newspaper such as the Sowetan is going to replace three — yes, three! — of its most capable, creative, professional and passionate senior sub-editors without forking out huge bucks, the gods of journalism only know! Especially given the moratorium placed late last year on new appointments.

The fact that competent subs (as distinct from Quark-jockeys) — let alone chief subs — are scarcer than rocking-horse shit is only going to compound the crisis. Two other subs, not so senior, have also told me they are looking elsewhere. That will slash the quality-control capacity of the paper to only five people — before alternating shifts.

That is the extent of the damage wrought; not by a blog, but by the overreaction to it. But that, too, is part of the growing-up process, isn’t it?

The cause — not being able to distinguish between freedom of expression and blind loyalty-uber-alles to the company — is part of coping with a new media phenomenon the full impact of which is yet to be felt.

The report in the Financial Mail of December 21 (“Beware of the Blog”) did an excellent job of spotlighting the dilemma companies face as a result of the opportunities blogging offers their staff. The report concluded that, despite the legal muscle of employers and existing laws, “the law may continue to develop in favour of employees”.

This prospect is supported by the Freedom of Expression Institute, which supported me in my appeal (still under consideration), and its counterparts elsewhere in the world. Although they have not come out officially in favour of freedom of expression by employees via blogging about their companies’ practices and policies, Reporters Without Borders and other media rights groups support “the principle”. Our own Sanef is in a similar place.

Organisations, governments, companies and departments need to heed the warnings. Otherwise, like dinosaurs, they too will become extinct in a new open democratic environment with unprecedented access, not only to information, but to the means of distributing it instantly around the planet. Ignore staff complaints or put their criticisms on the backburner at your peril.

But those that choose the enlightened route could find themselves paying a lot less for market research, internal climate surveys, communication audits and futile team-building bullshit.

That iconic journal of science, Nature, editorialised this week: “Impartial policy analysis is being held back in poor countries for want of either public- or private-sector support within these nations themselves.

“Both governments and wealthy individuals in developing countries continue, on the whole, to regard sound policy analysis as a luxury that they cannot afford. They are wrong.”

While there is a viral epidemic in the NSA of committees and task teams investigating everything from the arms scandal to the relative value of two-ply bog paper over single ply, there is also a scandalous disregard for findings that don’t reinforce the piper-payer’s preconceptions.

When the council of the country’s biggest city and the continent’s economic CPU can hire public relations pimps who don’t know what a sounding board is, we are in big trouble. Is it any wonder then that there are still those who doubt our capacity to build the Gautrain, stem the brain drain, feed the hungry, curb the crime, house the homeless, end the injustice and give meaning to those reams of pretty paper promises that adorn the walls of Parliament.

That is why humble, honest self-examination is so critical. Especially for a developing country gasping to keep up with the rest of the world. And where better to do so than by blogging. This is real. And this has only just begun.