Apparently I'm a sad little boy who sits at my bedroom computer all day. That was Stephen Pound MP's non-defence of smeargate on Sky News earlier when I was debating with him. He didn't even try to defend Labour but went on the attack... against bloggers. And blogs are supposedly the puerile ones?
Mr Pound certainly isn't alone. In the Daily Mail Stephen Glover attacks the blogosphere as a "modern monster".
In The Times Stephen Pollard writes this:
[A good friend of mine was smeared not so long ago by Stephen Pollard. As far as I'm concerned he has no moral authority to write such a thing.]
It's clear that politicians and the old media feel threatened by the internet and for the reasons I set out in today's Guardian they are right to be worried. So what's the defence of blogs?
The so-called quality press isn't so great. When I was effectively Chief of Staff to IDS The Times rang me up about outdated allegations that Iain was misusing the government car. There was no evidence of this (because he wasn't) and I carefully put a Times reporter and the Editor of The Times in touch with the Government Car Service who confirmed that they had no worries. Did that stop The Times splashing the story on its front cover? Of course not. How many other times has the quality press misrepresented people? Most people in public life have at least one story of misrepresentation or inaccuracy.
The internet provides a right of reply... and fast: At least with the internet people don't have to wait one, two or three days in the hope that a newspaper might eventually publish a correction or a letter putting the other perspective. Sloppy journalism can be countered immediately by the blogosphere. Fisking is one of the internet's greatest triumphs.
The blogosphere isn't so inaccurate: It's true that many small blogs may publish complete nonsense but that's not true of Britain's biggest centre right blogs. I actually think we are very responsible. And, if we do err, you can be sure that one hundred left leaning blogs will delight in pointing it out. As with the old media, there's immediate accountability that wasn't true in the pre-internet age. Despite Mr Pound's efforts the undeniable fact about Guido's story was that it was 100% true.
Blogs aren't all the same: All blogs are often lumped together but blogs are as different from one another as Nuts is different from 'another magazine', The Economist. Paul Staines is brilliant at what he does and I take my hat off to him for his massive scoop this weekend but his blog is a very different animal from ConservativeHome. For me the most interesting blogs are the very specialist blogs. As I mentioned yesterday, I learn most from specialist blogs like UK Polling Report, Defence of the Realm and Burning Our Money. They provide the expertise of a lifetime of study rather than a reporter who is only just getting to grips with his or her new brief. And just look at ConHome today. Dominic Grieve has written 1,200 words explaining why the ECHR itself is not the problem but the interpretation of the Human Rights Act. Throughout the day, no doubt, commenters will test the veracity of his argument. I'd call that a public service - as are our blogs on local government and Parliament. ConHome on our tiny budget provides more coverage of parliament than most newspapers.
I've probably added to the sense of old media versus new media confrontationalism with this post but the core truth is, of course, we need each other. Guido needed the Sunday newspapers to ensure his story took off. The G20 citizen reporter who caught the alleged beating of Ian Tomlinson on their mobile phone needed The Guardian to put it on the national agenda. Iain Dale and I have both written for national papers in recent days and seize most of the opportunities that come our way. But you'll have to forgive me for being irritated at the way blogs are often represented.