David Allen Green’s New Year’s resolutions

By David Allen Green Published 29 December 2010

My usual resolutions for each New Year are simple: to eat and drink more, and to exercise less. In this way, I have either the smug satisfaction of keeping my resolutions, or the personal benefit of breaking them. One year, I hope to break all three of these resolutions for as long as possible.

This year, however, I have an additional resolution: I would like to carry on supporting and promoting source-based blogging. The first wave of political and other bloggers are now falling away, many of whom added gossip or comment to a debate more often than sourced information. Now other bloggers, especially those from science or legal backgrounds, are showing what the blogging medium is capable of.

Blogging has the immediacy of pamphleteering, but is coupled with the ability to link directly to what is being commented on. In this way, free from print or broadcast production cycles but subject to instant verification, source-based blogging has a great deal of potential. Let's see how it fares in 2011.

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4 comments

mcquade's picture

Thu, 2010-12-30 18:36 — mcquade

Gossip, by definition, is sloppily sourced information.

guido's picture

Wed, 2010-12-29 14:52 — guido

Gossip, by definition, is sourced information.

Alice's picture

Wed, 2010-12-29 16:43 — Alice (not verified)

"source-based blogging"

Interesting use of language there.

I worry that the first comment has a point, but then one can be equally flippant about the term 'evidence' and as you say, blogging allows links to sources in a way gossip can be much looser about - it allows readers, if they are so inclined/ able to search back and assess claims for themselves, to learn more about a story before passing it on themselves.

So, good luck with that resolution.

Also: Season's Greetings.

Andy Mabbett's picture

Wed, 2010-12-29 18:09 — Andy Mabbett (not verified)

Your post offers no, er, sources.

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