WAR OF WORDS IN UK - SCALP TO GUIDO

There is only one NZ political blogger who shows any inkling of the flair shown by the king of political bloggers Guido Fawkes and that's Whale Oil.

Guido's recent expose has seen a close advisor to Gordon Brown forced to resign after he was found to have been involved in setting up a " black ops " site to poke the borax at the Tories.

It appears that the capers of Brown's advisor known as McPoison, were being taken to new heights.
Smears were going to be posted on a site called Red Rag

And in a parallel with the rise of blogs here, the force of the on line commentariat is now have a direct impact on British Politics.

Is this the new age of news and information?

This excerpt from the Sunday Herald on the Rise and rise of political Blogs shows that while blogs are often rough and ready they are self correcting.

"We've really had a decade and a bit of the growing influence of blogs," said McNair, "and Guido Fawkes is one of the most influential in the UK."

McNair, one of Scotland's foremost media experts, believes Paul Staines' claims to employ traditional journalistic skills are well-founded.

"If it's someone known to be reasonably reliable and who has good inside sources, then in that sense a blog has the same values and the same skills as traditional media: who you know, how you cultivate sources," he said.

And while critics quite reasonably point out that blogs are unedited and generally display the limitations and fallibility of one sole writer, the vicious, cannibalistic nature of the wider blogosphere lends a natural check to any inaccuracies on the larger blogging sites.

McNair added: "Blogs are just as reliable as print - in one sense more. They are checked and double checked, and other bloggers will descend on them like a pack of hungry wolves if there's any inaccuracy. I don't think you can get away with mistakes much on the blogosphere."

We agree. If we get it wrong we know within minutes. Other bloggers are the toughest critics of their own and that leads to the robustness of their offerings. We and the other blogs of our ilk have become more than just opinionated political freaks.

We are leading, breaking and criticising the quality of the stories on offer to the public. We do it part - time and for free. For us - its a return to the cut and thrust of the mainstream media with our readers and fellow bloggers becoming the editors. We think it is a new dawn and it is tough to keep up with the pace of change or the tools available to give readers a better product but it so much fun we cant see us giving up anytime soon.