Last night I was invited to a Skeptics in the Pub debate about whether political blogging has any effect. I couldn’t go, but my friend who went sent me a couple of links about it.
Mark Reckons review of the event; some video and audio.
Guido was there and said this, which I think is true and important:
Paul Staines started by saying that there are about 3,000 people who run the UK (politicians, financial people and the media) and about half of them regularly read his blog. They are the people he is trying to reach although his primary purpose in writing it is to amuse himself.
(This fits in with what someone, possibly Perry de Havilland, told me when I complained that no-one I know reads blogs: it doesn’t matter because you only have to influence the influential people.)
Apart from that there was some talk about whether the comparitive roles of bloggers and professional journalists when it comes to investigative journalism. I think it’s pretty clear that blogs increasingly lead on the stories and the MSM follows. It’s not clear whether the MSM is needed to influence those 3,000 people.
Read about my previous encounter with Skeptics in the Pub when they discussed global warming with Fred Singer.