Iain MacWhirter: "blog - an ugly word for an ugly trade"

Following on from Yousuf and Will's leads, I had to comment on a quite remarkable piece attacking the "ugly trade" of blogging from Iain MacWhirter in The Herald. I don't want to play into Iain's hands by brazenly slagging his article off but he has riled me, but chiefly because Iain usually writes with so much consideration and intellectual insight, traits that are sadly lacking in the above link.

I can think of many suggestions for why Iain felt moved to write such a post, one that immediately sprang to mind was the seemingly unsuccessful blog that Iain had up and running for a couple of years. Mothballed in January 2009 it is interesting to note that Iain still felt he had to update his blog profile to mention that he is the Rector of the University of Edinburgh, a win that happened in mid-February.

I felt that was worth mentioning because it suggests a frustration with blogging in general, updating your blog profile but then not writing any more posts?

Anyway, if Iain does feel annoyed or even threatened by the blogging scene it still does not justify some of his comments, that the blog scene is full of "sociopathic egos with extreme views" or that "argument and insight has been replaced by bark and bite". Let's remember that this whole blog debate stemmed from attack dog Damian McBride who (1) is not a blogger and (2) is (or was) very close to the top of the Downing St tree. So why are bloggers getting it in the neck?

Natural selection will always ensure that quality content, be it in papers or blogs, will always win through and any dross will ultimately get its comeuppance.

So when Iain says that bloggers "don't write, they ejaculate" he would only be correct in the sense that we're coming after MSM writers like himself. But media commentators will always have the upper hand so they should relax and leave the attack pieces on the blogosphere for lower brow journalists out there.

UPDATE: Alex Massie has an excellent take on the matter.