Three different articles about blogging made for good reading today. The first, in the Guardian, tells of how Peter Cox, from Cardiff, managed to get Abbey National bank to resolve a complaint by posting the gripe on his "widely-read" weblog.
Mr. Cox insisted that he resorted to naming-and-shaming the bank only after they had not satisfactorily dealt with his complaint via the phone. The story raises the question of whether blogging offers a way of empowering individual consumers. Conversely, do blogs leave businesses open to being discredited by dishonest and/or anonymous individuals? Perhaps it all depends on whether a blogger is already trusted by his own audience; and the estimated size of that blogger's readership.
Speaking of business, Jimmy Guterman has made some insightful points in his essay for Business 2.0, about where blogs might find rightful roles in corporations, but suggests that blogging might ultimately benefit management (!) -- a way of "eavesdropping on water-cooler discussions".
The Hartford Courant does not, however, see that employee blogs could do anything but damage that newspaper's own identity. In a story that appears in today's Editor&Publisher, we learn how journalist Denis Horgan was given a cease-and-desist order on his personal blog.
Courant editor Brian Toolan explains his decision thus: "Denis Horgan's entire professional profile is a result of his attachment to The Hartford Courant, yet he has unilaterally created for himself a parallel journalistic universe where he'll do commentary on the institutions that the paper has to cover without any editing oversight by the Courant."
It seems the debate about blogging vs. "real" journalism is set to continue...
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