I’ve been studiously doing my best to ignore the whole Shilpa thing - so we’ve learned that Jade Goody is a pig ignorant chav and that’s news? - on the premise that the best possible response to the whole show is ‘don’t watch and don’t vote - it’ll only encourage the bastards’.
And besides, for sheer entertainment value, there’s far more to be gained from watching the Tim and Guido show (start here and read everything that follows) than anything that C4’s little coterie of ‘no talents’ have to offer, although it is worth noting on the latter that I gather that the poor lass who’s getting picked is the only one in place that actually has a viable career - make of that what you will.
No, as I say, there’s much more fun to be had in watching Tim and Guido go at it - well sort of go at it, as Guido seems to be doing an awful lot of wimping out.
Tim’s been covering a lot of ground in a short space of time, which makes it a bit difficult to find something original to write, but reading through everything perhaps the one thing that most piques my interest is that whole business of Guido being ‘influential’ - in what sense?
That’s the essence of the hype surrounding Guido, that he’s somehow ‘influential’ - he even made one of those tiresome newspaper list of the most ‘influential’ people in the media a short while back (in the low 40s, as I recall) which sound impressive until you looked a bit more closely an noticed that Polly Pot was the winner - but come to think of it, just what can one actually point to in order to say that Guido has actually influenced anything?
To start to unpick that particular question, perhaps its worth taking a quick look at the ‘career’ - if you can call it that - of the blogger that Guido has said he most wishes to emulate, Matt Drudge.
What do we know about Matt Drudge?
He’s the blogger that got the original scoop on the Clinton-Lewinsky story. Yeah. And he’s got pretty much everything Guido seems to aspire to; the ‘media profile’, the contacts, the massive hit counts, his own personal coterie of adoring sycophants and fifth-rate imitators.
But since his break-out story, what has Drudge actually done… err… err… no, I’m fucked if I know as well.
The best you say can about Drudge’s ‘career’ is that its rather like the England career of the footballer, John Barnes. Everone remember’s Barnes’ spectacular goal against Brazil, early on his career, but ask the majority of people what he achieved after that in an England shirt and it’s blank looks all round. John Barnes is forever the guy that scored that brilliant goal against Brazil and then… err… errr.. err…
And then you go back to the whole Clinton-Lewinsky thing and as yourself what that actually achieved?
Well, it did keep a particular small-minded, anal retentive, puritan lawyer, Kenny Starr, in work for a couple of years and several million dollars of congressional expenses after he managed to turn up jack-shit on the thing he should have been investigating; ‘Whitewater’.
But Slick Willie didn’t take a fall in the end, and he wasn’t actually impeached.
[Correction: As Tim has rightly pointed out in comments, Clinton was impeached, in the sense that the trial, itself, is the impeachment, but was not found guilty and removed from office.]
[Note: You see, Guido - that’s how you do it!]
Nor did his successor, Bush the idiot, ride all the way to the White House on the back of America’s moral outrage and a semen-stained black dress. He didn’t beat Clinton, either. He beat the congentially adodyne Al Gore in a election held in a country where incumbent ‘veeps’ failing to successfully step up to the plate when its their ‘turn’ to go for becoming top banana is the rule rather than the exception, and then only thanks to a fair bit of electoral chicanery in a state run by his brother and on the back of biased call by a Fox News pundit who, as I recall, was also something like Dubya’s cousin.
Drudge got his scoop, his name recognition and his army of adoring toadies, but in the grand scheme of things he actually made fuck all difference to anything. His sole contribution to American political culture was a mulri-million dollar sideshow from which we learned that Slick Willie will happily go a blow-job when the opportunity arises.
Big fucking deal.
And if Drudge’s ‘career’ can be likened to that of John Barnes then, sticking with the football analogy, his would-be British imitator, Guido Fawkes can, perhaps, best be likened to Kieron Dyer, a player of whom the pundits all speak well but whose achievements are so nondescript that one cannot think, off hand, exactly what it is he’s ever actually done - at least Barnes had a career highlight.
What is the sum total of Guido’s ‘impact’ on British political culture?
Well he kind of ‘outed’ Mark Oaten a couple of days before the Sunday tabloids got to him, but only by way of a couple of nasty-minded queer-bashing ‘paedo’ gags in a pissed up podcast, and it was still very much the MSM that run the full story and took Oaten down.
And he also managed to name a female Labour MP who had allegedly been shagging Prescott on the side, thereby deflecting the public attention away from the real Prescott story of the time, his meetings with Phil Anschutz and the whole casino deal, thereby ensuring that the public never really got to grips with the question of how a government can claim to be running a fair ‘competititon’ for the single ’super-casino’ licence they have on offer when their own regeneration quango stands to get a hefty kickback on the gaming profits over and above the Treasury’s usual tax rake if, by some miraculous chance, the super-casino does wind-up at the Millennium Dome.
Oh, and a few of his comment box trolls ‘broke’ Defra’s wiki by graffiti-ing a few of the pages.
And that’s what passes for being ‘influential’ these days?
Fuck me, no wonder Jade Goody can make a career out of being Britain’s most high-profile moron, if a couple of forays in Humpty-Dumpster territory and a bit of fucking about with a government wiki is what counts as ‘influence’.
So what’s the big deal with Guido?
A fair amount of the stuff he peddles is leeched off the MSM anyway - I’ve seen him called on at least a couple of occasions for claiming ’scoops’ that have then been shown to have come hot off Press Association newswire, and a fair proportion of his ‘in the know’ rumours have that classic Nostradamus-like quality of being so fucking vague that he can claim to been there first with just about any salicious bit of gossip that worms its way in the mainstream in the following 48 hours to a week.
Most of the time, Guido’s much (self) publicised ‘edge’ over the MSM amounts to no more than being able to beat journos to the punch by being in a position to quickly fire off a few remarks on a story they’ve already got because the journo has to navigate his or her way through the mire of sub-editors and having their article lawyered before it hits the outside world.
So what, exactly, is it about Guido that makes him the ‘Mr Big’ of British blogging in the eyes of the media?
His ego and inexhaustible capacity for self-aggrandisement? His hit counts? His troll fanbase?
From the photo up at Samizdata it sure ain’t his looks - what does this picture say to you (scroll down, it’s with the caption beginning ‘Guido Fawkes reminded us all why we blog…’) if not ‘unemployed former Brookside extra’?
Personally, the answer I think is ‘none of the above’.
What makes Guido such a big deal in the eyes of the press is that out of all the British bloggers who could be considered to have a ‘media profile’; those well-known enough to be read (and sometimes liked to or quoted) by the denizons of the MSM, and for his pretentions of being anti-establishment and of being a ‘political arsonist’ and trying to tear things down, Guido is actually the least threatening of the bunch; and also the blogger most likely to be co-opted into the mainstream and ‘go native’ given a government more to his liking and the right inducements, just like his ‘hero’, Matt Drudge.
When the media says that anyone, let alone a blogger, is ‘influential’, the first question ‘you need to ask is how are you defining influence and in what way are you measuring it’? - which in the media very often means that both the definition and the measure amount of no more than ‘bums on seats’ - ratings, advertising revenues and sales.
If apply that idea to one of the biggest sectors of the MSM; the tabloid press and work on the basis that you can make a fair assessment of ‘influence’ (i.e. what sells newspapers) by what and who most makes the frnot page, then even a cursory glance at The Sun, Daily Mail and Daily Express will lead to the conclusion that the three most ‘influential’ media figures at the present time are Kate Middleton, Princess Diana (being dead for nearly 10 years is not quite the impediment it might seem, as the dead can’t sue for libel) and Mr A.N. Immigrant of ‘Should-be-everywhere-else-but-here’.
That’s Guido’s market, the place where his ‘influence’ is most keenly noted by the MSM. He deals routinely in the kind of instantly disposable gossipy tittle-tattle that flogs papers on Monday and becomes budgie cage liner by Wednesday.
As far as exercising any other kind of influence; things that help to set and shape real political agendas, Guido’s a nobody because he’s got fuck all to offer but fifth-hand anecdotes about the size of John Prescott’s dick.
Does that mean that because the self-appointed ‘leading light’ of the British blogosphere has precisely fuck all real influence that blogging, itself, is a busted flush - all mouth and only pyjama bottoms?
No. Not at all. It just means that when you come to work up a list of bloggers who have had a genuine influence and what eaxctly they did that was influential, then the name ‘Guido Fawkes’ is nowhere to be seen.
Okay, this is matter of opinion, far from an exhaustive list, and you’re all free to disagree and suggest your own alternatives, but a quick list of the bloggers (and actions) that I see as having had some measure of real influence over the last couple of years, during which time blogging has taken off, would have to include.
Tim Worstall - His tip-off to the MSM about the Legislative and Regulatory Reform bill got that whole story going (and for getting a rise out of Polly Pot and getting called a ‘pendant’)
Tim Ireland - For both the Backing Blair campaign and his Parliament Square Carol Concerts.
Rachel North - Who more than anyone else I can think of has put a human face on the London bombings and, in doing so simply by being herself and speaking openly and honestly, has done more to expose and bring home the falsity of the government’s denial of a full inquiry and their efforts to make political capital out of the bombings than anyone else I can think of.
Public Sector ‘Work Bloggers’ - too many to mention by name but certainly include Random Acts of Reality, PC Copperfield and Dr Crippen, for breaking down the bureaucratic curtain and giving people an insight into what real goes on in our public services.
The Anti-ID campaign - a collective effort which includes bloggers, the IT press (especially The Register) and, of course, No2ID and which has had a clear and measurable impact. Three to four years ago, when this all started, the government were claiming 80% support for ID cards off the back of opinion polls taken at a time when most people simply didn;t understand either the technology or the issues - today, they’re still claiming 80% support off the back of the same 3-4 year old polls and daren’t commission any new research because the know that public support has nosedived due to the efforts of campaigners to inform and educate the public and take forward the debate the government didn’t want.
Factor in the small victories - everything the semi-regular whinging from newspaper columnists about bloggers invading their ‘patch’ to catching The Sun in a lie and forcing an apology, and bloggers are exerting an influence - not an obvious one, perhaps, but still one that does have an impact on both political and media agendas.
And before anyone points out the obvious, no I haven’t forgotten Scott Burgess’ outing of Dilpazier Aslam, but that belongs in category all of its own and had a different kind of influence - it didn’t shape any agendas or change any perceptions, but what it did show is that in the right circumstances bloggers can do the investigative stuff and well as pyjama-clad op-eds very effectively and do need to be taken seriously if the story stands up rather than being dismissed as a bunch of amateurs.
(I’ve not littered my list with links, btw, simply because you should have no trouble at all finding any of the bloggers listed above, most of whom are in my blogroll anyway).
And no, I also haven’t forgotten Sunny Hundal and his ‘New Generation Network’ project either or even the Euston Manifesto - it’s just that bit to soon to assess the impact of either and do it fairly.
Where’s Guido in all of that? Having his usual comments box love-in with his pet trolls and sock puppets.
In fact the real irony about Guido’s ‘influence’ is that his biggest ’score’ to date - the Prescott ‘Cider with Rosie’ story not only had absolutely fuck all in the way of any real impact or influence but actually deflected media attention aware from the other Prescott story running at the time, the Casino deal, sufficiently to ensure that neither story ended up really going anywhere, because the media ended up obsessing over precisely the wrong things in order to flog a bit more chip-paper of the future.
Having said all that, I don’t quite share Tim’s concerns about Guido posing a danger to the development of the blogosphere - not that I blame Tim for calling Guido out, someone had to before they have to widen the lobby corridors at Westminster to accomodate Guido’s ego - largely because for all the hype, I don’t really see him as being all that important and if anyone does end up getting ‘burned’ by the establishment or the MSM then it’ll most likely be Guido anyway - it’s only a matter of time before someone, probably the MSM itself, will tire of his antics and either start firing back at him or, worse still, ignore him.
Like most of the gossip he peddles, he’s an innately disposable commodity, a pot noodle blogger, the kind that seems ‘tasty’ enough to begin with but soon proves so unsatisfying that you wonder why you didn’t just flush it down the bog straight away and cut out the middle man; not so much destined for greatness as destined to join the has-beens and never-will-bes on Celebrity (Z-list) Big Brother - that’s if the current bunch of twats don’t succeed in killing the whole shebang anyway.
Give it time and it won’t be too long before Guido Fawkes: Arch-Media Whore becomes Guido Fawkes: Didn’t he use to be a blogger?
