Evan Price is suggesting HERE that a bloggers' trade association is formed, partly because of the growing libel threats. I wondered what other bloggers might think. My initial reaction is not huegly positive, but I am persuadable. It just seems to be that blogging is such an individualistic activity, that forming as association would turn it mainstream. On the converse side, it may well be a way of protecting against cases of libel through a collective insurance scheme.
What do you think?
16 comments:
I'm not sure.
I can see the benefits of some form of collective protection - perhaps organising some method of liability cover and the like.
However, as you said, 'political blogging' covers such a vast spectrum of activities, from the humorous to the vitriolic and all points in between. Add in the breadth of political views, and you could end up with an organisation that spends most of its time chasing its own tail and mediating inter-blogger disputes rather than promoting blogging as an effective influencing tool.
I guess we'll have to see, and take a view were some such organisation to be formed.
D
Iain I would just like to say that efforts to organise your fellow workers have my full support. Unity is strength. You may wish to consider affiliating.
How long before this Association turns into a control mechanism?
They usually do.
I know I would never join a union by any name!!
At the moment, bloggers are just posting whatever comes into their heads. Once you start having organisations, you start getting regulations, and a form of elitism.
It is this elitism which has has limited the voice of the individual in every other form of the media (tried setting up your own TV channel without following the association rules lately?)
Within 5 years, blogging would die as a form of getting something off your mind and would become a full time business with all the paperwork that comes with it!
Great for the likes of yourself who can afford it - not so good for the pleb with a PC in his bedroom and an hour spare now and again.
Can't see it getting off the ground - hopefully!
It will happen.
There will be a committe with 'officers' presumably 'elected'
there will be standing orders.
there will be standards.
membership fees.
meetings and conferences.
Then, in time,
There will be people who will be refused entry or thrown out.
There will be 'guidelines' then these will become 'rules'
Regulation within and regulation without.
Stay as you are iain, I think, should anything untoward occur, you would have the support of your friends, colleagues, patrons of your blog and others.
This should be a NO NO!
Don't go there Iain - as Strapworld describes above more eloquently than I, it is the thin end of the wedge - just look where the Lobbying industry (love them or hate them) is now, since the Association of Professional Political Consultants decided to set itself up as the 'professional body' for Lobbyists. They now have a Commons Select Committee calling for all Lobbyists (and Lobby and Political Journalists if they get their way) to register every meeting with every client - imagine where you would be if you had to start registering every source that ever gave you a tip-off?
Leave it alone, Iain - it's not worth it...
Likewise not sure, not least given the very individualistic form that it is! I think in a freeform way we have some of the sentiments behind such a proposal anyway. An unspoken knowledge of what you can and cannot write about without causing flak, blogger solidarity when one is being put through the grinder, etc..
Within five minutes of forming the Association of Political Bloggers there will be a bitch fight and the losers will go off and form the Political Bloggers Association.
Just look what's happening to all the UKIP/Libertarians/boozers,smokers and druggies.
Most bloggers are nutters. Maybe about 20 are relatively sane and have something to say. Run a mile Iain. Run a mile.
Iain,
I think this could be a good idea if it shares legal advice and best practice. However, it should be structured as a voluntary association rather than a Trade Union type set up.
Well on the face of it such an idea sounds pretty reasonable. However, if a common insurance scheme were set up it would probably not serve the blogsphere well. It would provide an incentive for people to post even more outragous aticles than some already do and ones which are perhaps very damaging to individuals/organisations. This is beause people woul know that it's not they who would have to cough up the cash to pay out should they loose a libel case.
Furthermore, one has to think about the basis of blogs. It is about personal opinion and if an individual is stupid enough to publish something which could well result in legal action taken then I have to say it's their own silly fault.
I suggest that you don't need a formal Association but you should set up, before they are needed, parallel means of communication independent of your blog with those you can trust and rely on, so that if anyone of you is suddenly taken 'off air' by force majeure, you can tell them what has happened and they can react quickly.
Setting up a private forum for the exchange of views, for political bloggers only, might be sensible and useful and might naturally lead to them meeting in the flesh and getting to know and trust one another.
You've just insulted the group "representing" Palestinians. Are you sure being sued is your biggest theoretical danger?
Fortunately the fact that your blog is unlikely to attract extremist nutters (Chris Paul excepted) reduces the threat.
As for the rest, I'm too ignorant of libel law to offer worthwhile guidance. Staines reputedly keeps his financial assets abroad.
good idea for deterring unmeritorious libel actions, though I do wonder if it would also offer protection to bloggers who aren't sure of their stories and publish it anyway.
The other worry, of course, is that a load of Labour bloggers may try and bring the whole thing down by deliberately publishing false stories they know the association would end up defending in the courts.
There is a sort-of precedent across the Pond in the Media Bloggers' Association, and that did get me wondering about forming a Scottish version of that - I have to admit that the suggestion failed to set the heather alight.
Having said that, organisation does take place: Alex Hilton's appeal for help had people from all political viewpoints rallying round. And, of course, you have the Britblog and Scottish Roundup teams plying their trade on a weekly basis. In short, there's nothing stopping bloggers coalescing on an ad hoc basis.
In a formal exercise, there's the practicalities of where to draw the line. Would there be an organisation for each of the UK nations, or just one - I can see my fellow SNP bloggers being forced to think very carefully about affiliating to the latter, and as we represent a very large chunk of the Scottish blogosphere, that would pose a problem.
Individual associations could be successful, and could work in concert, but then there'd be logistical questions about any co-operation, and if the respective associations went off in very different directions, it would defeat the object. And questions would be asked n both sides about why a Scottish blogger gets X, while an English one gets Y.
And there's the Blogpower precedent: the danger to any association isn't one strong personality or group taking over, but the emergence of two or more. That's when a clash takes place and the results would be disastrous.
It can work, but those problems have to be considered. And as we haven't found it difficult to organise ourselves informally when we've felt it useful, why change that formula?
Bloggers can join the NUJ for protection, training, and so on. NUJ have a digital section and quite a few blogging members.
Not sure why paranoid Machiavelli is accusing Labour bloggers in advance of damaging a putative association ... which as far as I can tell is not intended to be party political.
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