Polly Toynbee's opinions on political blogging

Interesting to read Polly Toynbee's comment at the Bagehot lecture.

As reported at Press Gazette she made the point that

Political journalism in Britain is suffering from an “anti-democratic” fever, is too obsessed with blogging and needs to have more respect for Britain’s elected leaders.

She went on to say that regardless of your personal political affiliations you should keep a detached view of the subject

“If you are going to report on the world of politics, you need to have a strong instinctive sympathy for the political process and the very difficult task politicians face in getting anything done at all. “Even if you lean strongly to the right or the left in your views, you need an underlying respect for the business of politics"

“If you start out assuming that all politicians are ill-intentioned knaves and bounders who are all out to feather their own nests, you will illuminate nothing for your readers and discover very little of interest,” she said.
“You will be adding to the dangerous anti-democratic mood that is creeping up on us at the moment where every lazy comedian or chat show host regurgitates the current knee-jerk view that Westminster is a palace of rogues who should all be sent packing.

“Most political columnists these days are overtly and strongly opinionated, wearing their views on their sleeves as their brand. Many behave like mini-governments in exile. They’re part of the political weaponry of their proprietors.
“The world of media is becoming an ever-noisier and brasher place with ever more competition to be heard among the great cacophony of views. And that’s before you even click on the internet and get that great explosion of blogging rawness. The quiet reasoned voice does seem to get trampled under the elephant heard of opinionators.

And on blogging in particular she makes a very good point that she doesnt feel threatened by the blogsphere

“People say: ‘What’s the difference between a blog and column anyway? Isn’t MySpace just as good as the Guardian comment pages?’ I think not. There is a skill in crafting a column with a beginning, a middle and an end, a coherent argument and at least three facts readers don’t know, preferably information gleaned from talking to the leading players in the case.
“There is a risk that the style of the blogosphere is dragging us all along to shout louder. It may be that the short burst of opinion is all anyone can absorb and the longer column becomes too much of a time-investment.