please empty your brain below
It'a a very good question, and one I think about quite a lot. Although I used to be an avid Guardian reader - as you were this morning at least - nowadays I prefer the blogs. Why? Because bloggers reveal more about themselves. Or at least the weblogs I read. (No time for those right/left wing political nonsense blogs. You might as well buy the Grauny or the Telegraph for that stuff.)

No - the time I would once have spent leafing through the newsprint I'm now happier clicking on the websites of people I've come to *know*, in a way that print journalists don't attempt. (With the probable exception of Julie Burchill, who could well qualify as the country's greatest blogger. The letters page is her comment box.)

Stick with it. Are you a journalist yourself? It's rare to find perfect grammar and spelling.

Peter | Homepage | 26.03.03 - 9:48 p.m. | #

I find it hard to get internet access on the District Line. I also find it hard to open a broadsheet newspaper, but not impossible, so the newspaper wins.

As you say, some journalists write in a way that means you get to know them (The Guardian's Tim Dowling's like that for me - very me), but I also like the variety that one newspaper can contain - something it's rare to find in just one blog.

And no, I'm not a journalist. Just thank Mrs Warner and Mrs Parrott - they worked wonders on my grammar and spelling when I were a chlid.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 26.03.03 - 10:05 p.m. | #

I promised I wouldn't write any more here, as it seems pushy to arrive from nowhere and seem to "take over". (I'm not - believe me.) But your response invites more.

Yes, there's more variety in a newspaper than in a single blog - but we're not talking about one blog, we're talking about the totality - or at least the subset you choose to go with. This set changes with time, yet always it gives more variety than any newspaper I've come across.

Think about the present magazine guest week on "Troubled-Diva", compare it with possibly the finest web-writing currently available on "Kill Your Boyfriend", supplemented by the first-person accounts from Baghdad on "Where is Raed?"

Newspapers? Forget em! But, I agree, at the moment you can't read blogs on the tube or the bus.

Why do I do it? Two reasons... (a) because I can, and (b) I take, therefore I should give back. It's a mass democratisation of the written medium, which until now has been under tight control. Sorry for going on so much, and you won't hear from me again for quite some time.

Peter | Homepage | 26.03.03 - 10:41 p.m. | #

More than 53 minutes then

Newspapers can't beat that kind of turnaround for reporting, commenting and feedback.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 26.03.03 - 11:27 p.m. | #

You can't swat a fly with a blog.

I'll get me coat.

Gert | Homepage | 27.03.03 - 11:33 p.m. | #

Perhaps if you have a flat panel monitor....No that could be expensive

Douglas | 28.03.03 - 1:27 a.m. | #

I wonder if it's that newspapers are getting more like magazines, and blogs are more similar to magazines than they are to traditional newspapers. I'm thinking of that new 'Word' magazine here, which has pages which could be straight from a collection of decent blogs.

Also, I buy a newspaper to get an overview of everything important I ought to know. It would take a very long time to get that overview from blogs, unless you read bloggers who, er, spend most of their time linking to news stories...

Jon | Homepage | 28.03.03 - 12:12 p.m. | #











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