Tom Doyle :: TALK

On the way to work this morning, I was listening to NewsTalk 106 when the much anticipated debate over the value of blogging was in full flow. Irish Times journalist John Waters had suggested in a previous show that all bloggers were “stupid”. He had previously challenged NewsTalk to find a blogger than could string more than 3 words of english together. So they did. Unfortunately I can’t remember the guys name, Fergal something! He is a barrister and a frequent blogger.

Anyway, I’m not really talking about it here to give a run down of how it went. My irk is really with John Waters, a man who seems to put all the societies problems down to the internet and the evil bloggers. John has just shown the nation how out of touch he really is. John reckons that all bloggers focus on the negative side of life and enjoy slagging and insulting people with their blogs. He even goes as far as to say that the Internet is so negative that bloggers are the cause of suicides arranged on the Internet. John has obviously never heard of web forums.

Another huge statement he makes is that the Internet is made up of 60-70% of porn websites, he couldn’t back up this statistic, but says it’s a well known fact… hmm… so these statistics from 2006 that say it’s 12% or completely wrong then? http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html

Anyway, I don’t mind being one of those bloggers that he can put into a box, because I wouldn’t call myself a serious blogger. So to back up your theory on how negative bloggers can be, please read above… oh and it’s easy to see how out of touch you are with the Internet, when you look at your hair…