Two Years a-Blogging
Deaglán de Bréadún
Tomorrow I shall be two years contributing to The Irish Times Politics Blog. It has been a curious journey with many surprises, some good, others not so good.
A colleague said to me a while back: “You would need a degree in Geography to find the Politics Blog.” The location reminds me of a little tapas bar I was taken to once in Barcelona – we traversed an infinity of small side-streets to get there but, on arrival, it was worth the journey.
One likes to think that those who find their way through the interstices of our website will consider it worth their while. Reading the comments, it has to be said that not all of them are friendly in tone!
Nevertheless they are significant in number, compared with when the Blog started. What surprised me most – and I still haven’t gotten over the shock – is how nasty some people are when they put pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard.
It’s like those nice, normal folk who turn into mini-Hitlers when they get behind the wheel of a car. Is it the cloak of anonymity? It seems people are bored with being as nice as pie to everyone in their daily lives and find that commenting on blogs is a useful release.
It may also be a chip on the shoulder. Like other papers of record, this one would perhaps be seen by some as an “organ of the establishment”. I don’t accept that but undoubtedly there are some who would take such a view. In any case, Lee Harvey Oswald is alive and well and blogging away in the School Depository.
I should add that there are several contributors who manage to make their point in a thoughtful, civil and polite manner. Many thanks and much appreciation to those people. As for the others, thank you for your interest and for not being boring. Incidentally, there is very little feedback from colleagues in the print media but the public response makes up for that.
