Online Journalism Blog

This is an investigative/process piece looking at the development of a story that High Wycombe Council has spent money specifically creating a cemetary extension for Muslims, and the tensions that were stirred up in its wake. It is a piece by Alan Wilson, Area Bishop of Buckingham, a long established blogger.

I’m cross-posting it as an example of the type of narrative that bloggers can do very well, combining opinion with reporting to undermine a popular myth, and with critique of mainstream reporting along the way.

The key point I draw from the story is that a more distributed media gives a greater opportunity for “chinese whispers”, where questionable rumours to become the established orthodoxy by media sites and blogs reporting that “x has reported that y has happened” rather than going to the original source to find out if it *did* happen. Then a (dishonourable) justification is possible that “our story is accurate – we just reported what that other site was saying”.

That process also gives a deniable route for Publicists to leak claims and rumours into the public domain, and alliances of websites and blogs to promote claims which meet their political objectives. It is down to the standards of individuals, whether bloggers or reporters, how much depth of context we provide in each case.

One interesting question is how bloggers can adapt traditional journalistic values and practices in an approach which includes more elements than straight reporting. Equally, the wider media faces a similar challenge, in that opinion has become blurred into reporting in most news publications.

This is the type of blogging that goes on day-in-day-out and doesn’t usually make the national papers, or draw the attention of the politicians or campaigning groups, or get acknowledged by media commentators.

I’ve reposted the article including pictures to show Bishop Alan’s blogging style.