Is inserting your own history into a tangentially related story really necessary?

In "Was outing anonymous blogger Grogs Gamut really necessary?", Kate Doak has produced a mostly serviceable article about what came to be known on Twitter as "#groggate". The issue is covered in a straightforward way and deals with relevant issues of online journalistic ethics, but the way that The Scavenger has presented the story is by literally sexing it up.

Even before the article proper begins, the audience is given context: the author of the article is a transsexual who was outed in some way that goes undefined in the article. A media commentator does not need to say "I am qualified to comment on this because I have lived through an analogous situation"; a media commentator would be better placed saying "I am qualified to comment on this because it is my job to do so" - but of course, they shouldn't say that because it is implicit.

Doak is trying to insert herself into a story that can stand perfectly well for itself. It's an uncomfortable graft onto an otherwise straightforward piece. The Grogs Gamut case - a public servant's identity was revealed by a writer from the Australian - is an interesting one, and definitely valid for exploration in the identity management landscape of interconnected social media, but this is only basically attempted here.

It's somewhat ironic that Doak would go on to explicitly outline the qualifications of Massola and Latika Bourke later in the piece – and only tangentially writing about what she is presumably being paid to write about.

At this point it becomes clear that this is an uncomfortably written and not strictly proofread article, featuring "it's/its" confusion and also a "compromised" tweet - that is, one edited to fit within 140 characters but presented outside the medium so as to look like an exercise in illiteracy.

Doak attempts to write both a personal and investigative piece and doesn't quite "make it" with either approach. The whole endeavour is compromised, initially by an attempt to add personality and relevance, and then by a total breakdown in vision.

Wendy Francis vs. Moral Relativism

In the “Twitter election”, the parallel universe that has been running through the #ausvotes hashtag on Twitter, Family First Queensland candidate Wendy Francis has caused a stir. Francis posted a stream of tweets claiming, “Children in homosexual relationships are subject to emotional abuse. Legitimising gay marriage is like legalising child abuse” and similar. The internet and Twitter being the way they are, a politician can make an ill advised comment and delete it. The traces remain, however – if someone sees something particularly noteworthy, they will be sure to take screen caps and distribute them widely.

“Bigotry and homophobia in politics” reads almost as an apologia for Francis’ own words simply because they are born of ignorance and are not as repellent in the author’s eyes as those of One Nation’s John Groves. While Francis has never incited people to violence as Groves has, simply chalking Francis’ claims up to ignorance is irresponsible.

The author, “Bastard Sheep” (who apparently does not use his real name online), believes that education is the solution to Francis’ issues and worldviews. The fact remains that she is espousing the viewpoint that gay marriage and child abuse are the same thing. Francis’ claim is that she speaks for the “concerns of mainstream Australia”. She wants “mainstream Australia” to listen to her, and therefore she firmly believes that what she is saying is true and in the country’s best interests.

The “Bigotry and homophobia in politics” blog entry illustrates that a story can spread across the Twitter and blogospheres and be interpreted in a variety of ways. For Bastard Sheep, Francis’ comments were insignificant relative to the violent threats of John Groves, and not taken on their own merits.

(A more in-depth account of the John Groves issue, which is a mixture of reportage and opinion, is available at Nicholas Perkins’ blog.)

Rise of the LOLBolts

Andrew Bolt is perhaps better known in Melbourne than he is in Sydney, but the thing about the internet is that it is the great equaliser: as such, we can read his venomous and under-inflated opinion pieces wherever we are in the world.

Bolt is a target ripe for parody, and as such a twitter account purporting to be written by the man himself appeared online. It was not until nearly 18 months into @AndrewBolt’s Twitter reign that the “real” Bolt acknowledged the fake’s existence.

The Fake Bolt responded to the real Bolt’s outrage through Crikey with the arch headline “Real Andrew Bolt is wrong, says Fake Andrew Bolt”. With one of the subjects of the article also being the writer of the article, there is a clear bias displayed, but this is irrelevant.

Fake Andrew Bolt is writing in a different register to his normal satirical mode; here he is explaining himself while simultaneously painting a negative picture of the real Andrew Bolt and his apparent lack of humour. The article works because of the place of its publication: Crikey balances serious reportage and tongue-in-cheek humour on a daily basis.

Fake Andrew Bolt isn’t as high profile as fake pundits along the lines of Stephen Colbert, but he operates to the same principle: that of “Poe’s Law”, which states that fundamentalism and conservatism are largely indistinguishable from satire and parody. (For a decidedly different reading of Poe’s Law, check the always confusing Conservapedia)

In Australian media and political discourse, Twitter is becoming an increasingly pervasive and influential tool. Real Bolt can try to dismiss Twitter, saying, “I don’t really need to tell people what I had for breakfast”, but it is difficult to deny the impact that Twitter has had on a media savvy subset of Australian citizens. That some people can’t tell the two Bolts apart really says all that needs saying.