Big Blogger Wants You
Being professionally unemployed presents a dilemma. In the off-chance you become employed again, how do you make sure your brain hasn't been turned into mush by all the Prison Break and Grey's Anatomy episodes?
Me being me, I've spent it reading up on current affairs. One of my favorite newspapers is The Guardian, the UK's left-leaning broadsheet. I'm no Commie (so no Robin, I don't deserve 'neutralisation' by government death squads), but it provides a healthy balance to my Chinese capitalist background. I'm always amazed by the standard of analysis British columnists bring to their commentary on national politics; it makes Max Soliven read like a shallow, self-absorbed wanker (which come to think of it, he is).
But the really interesting thing about the newspaper is its online component, called comment is free. It's an experimental site allowing columnists to post at any time of the day. The innovation is in allowing registered members of the site to comment on the posts, helping the Guardian's community of readers to get involved in a debate, and letting the columnists to draw on this material to explore their line of thinking further. I think it's the first time a newspaper has allowed the standard of debate it creates to progress to this level - real-time, online, separate and distinct from its paper version.
This co-optation of the principles of blogging by an Old Media company has already given The Guardian major recognition as a pioneer (including a couple of Webby Awards for the Best Newspaper category). But now they've taken the concept one step further by conducting an online competition for amateur bloggers, the winner of whom will be given a slot on CIF as a regular online columnist. And since this IS the country that invented the annoying reality show Big Brother, the competition has been christened, tongue-in-cheek, Big Blogger.
It makes me wonder what would happen if a local newspaper (say, the Inquirer) conducted such a competition. Most people who read this blog know my opinion of the Inquirer has steadily declined over the years; either's it's a function of growing up and being more critical, or the paper has gradually degenerated into shit. I'm leaning towards the latter. But the Inquirer, to its credit, does have the best editorial section among the national broadhseets with several top-notch columnists (de Quiroz, David, Pangalangan and Quezon) and a couple of decent back-benchers (Monsod, Bello).
My pet peeve about local newspapers is that they will let any semi-literate famous person write a column, and have the audacity to slap it on the editorial pages. The ability to write is not the same as the talent to write well, or the perspective to write uniquely, two things which I think are essential for an editorial colunist. My other pet peeve is about celebrity bloggers in this country. Simply put, they're crap. In other countries celebrity bloggers actually have something insightful or powerful to say, about politics, social problems, or race. The most famous Filipino blogger is a nouveau riche, social climbing faggot who manages to fuglify even the most expensive things (with a face like that...).
Maybe this kind of competition is exactly what's needed to shake up the opinion pages and the local blogosphere and introduce some fresh, exciting, and interesting new writers to a national audience. We could certainly ask for better than the trite, pa-cute crap that passes for the 'youth perspective' in the Inquirer or other newspapers these days.
Me being me, I've spent it reading up on current affairs. One of my favorite newspapers is The Guardian, the UK's left-leaning broadsheet. I'm no Commie (so no Robin, I don't deserve 'neutralisation' by government death squads), but it provides a healthy balance to my Chinese capitalist background. I'm always amazed by the standard of analysis British columnists bring to their commentary on national politics; it makes Max Soliven read like a shallow, self-absorbed wanker (which come to think of it, he is).
But the really interesting thing about the newspaper is its online component, called comment is free. It's an experimental site allowing columnists to post at any time of the day. The innovation is in allowing registered members of the site to comment on the posts, helping the Guardian's community of readers to get involved in a debate, and letting the columnists to draw on this material to explore their line of thinking further. I think it's the first time a newspaper has allowed the standard of debate it creates to progress to this level - real-time, online, separate and distinct from its paper version.
This co-optation of the principles of blogging by an Old Media company has already given The Guardian major recognition as a pioneer (including a couple of Webby Awards for the Best Newspaper category). But now they've taken the concept one step further by conducting an online competition for amateur bloggers, the winner of whom will be given a slot on CIF as a regular online columnist. And since this IS the country that invented the annoying reality show Big Brother, the competition has been christened, tongue-in-cheek, Big Blogger.
It makes me wonder what would happen if a local newspaper (say, the Inquirer) conducted such a competition. Most people who read this blog know my opinion of the Inquirer has steadily declined over the years; either's it's a function of growing up and being more critical, or the paper has gradually degenerated into shit. I'm leaning towards the latter. But the Inquirer, to its credit, does have the best editorial section among the national broadhseets with several top-notch columnists (de Quiroz, David, Pangalangan and Quezon) and a couple of decent back-benchers (Monsod, Bello).
My pet peeve about local newspapers is that they will let any semi-literate famous person write a column, and have the audacity to slap it on the editorial pages. The ability to write is not the same as the talent to write well, or the perspective to write uniquely, two things which I think are essential for an editorial colunist. My other pet peeve is about celebrity bloggers in this country. Simply put, they're crap. In other countries celebrity bloggers actually have something insightful or powerful to say, about politics, social problems, or race. The most famous Filipino blogger is a nouveau riche, social climbing faggot who manages to fuglify even the most expensive things (with a face like that...).
Maybe this kind of competition is exactly what's needed to shake up the opinion pages and the local blogosphere and introduce some fresh, exciting, and interesting new writers to a national audience. We could certainly ask for better than the trite, pa-cute crap that passes for the 'youth perspective' in the Inquirer or other newspapers these days.