Guardian gets blogged to the Max!
Posted February 22nd, 2008 by Steve DaveyOn the 14th February a young writer called Max Gogarty, published the first of a weekly blog Max, 19, hits the road on the Guardian Unlimited website about his pending trip to India and Thailand. Maybe it was the fact that the blog came out on Valentine’s Day and lots of the readers hadn’t had a card! Maybe it was the fact that it was so badly written. Maybe it was the fact that the blogger is a young relation of a regular writer for the Guardian and his blog whiffs ever so slightly of nepotism. Whatever the reason, the shit truly hit the fan!
Within minutes there were dozens of hostile comments posted dismissing both the writer and the Guardian. One comment summed up the general feeling:
“Hooray! Just what is needed. Another blog by a posh boy related to a Guardian employee to keep us all up to date with his adventures in places that millions have experienced already. Wow, what a bright idea.”
The next day, the story was even covered on daytime TV, and prompted a response from the Travel Editor, Andy Pietrasik, defending his young writer. Even the editors response got hundreds of hostile comments.
One of the things that struck me about this story was just the volume, and indeed the quality of some of the comments. Some were borderline investigative journalism on their own. Readers quickly linked Max to his father, freelance journalist, Paul Gogarty, and questioned whether he got the job this way. One posted a link to a five year old story by Peter, hinting that this wasn’t even going to be the first time in Thailand for Max! In light of the apparent nepotism, someone even posted a link to a page on nepotism on the Guardian Jobs website! On the same day, someone had even posted a parody blog, Wayne Type, 19, Hits the Road.
I have to say that I generally agree with the comments on the website. This isn’t the first time that someone posh, well-connected and vacuous has been given the space to write over cliched un-insightful drivel about Asia in a way that belongs more in a travel brochure than a serious travel publication. Yet, as an occasional blogger, I did feel some sympathy for Max, who was just doing his thing - even if his thing should never really have reached such a wide audience. If Max had posted on a personal blog, no-one would really have objected, or even read it for that matter.
Most of all though, I felt a twinge of jealousy: how come Max, 19, gets so many comments? Skipping back over the last few months of the PT Blog, I have realised that maybe we need to be more controversial, and edgy. I toyed with the idea of following the Guardian nepotism path and getting my 14 month old daughter to write a blog, but I have decided to opt for the easy way out:
I would like to formally state that anyone reading this blog is a complete tosser - now come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:17 am
This was certainly a disaster for The Guardian. What I don’t understand is why, after all that, the travel editor’s interpretation is that people want to read more writing by “real people” rather than journalists. Most people were saying the opposite! See my take on it.
February 22nd, 2008 at 10:59 am
Personally, I think travelers are more flexible and more open minded than most people, so sometimes inciting controversy is difficult. Write a closed-minded post about why traveling first-class in luxurious hotels is the only way to travel and you might start some controversy!
February 24th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Hey Steve, why don’t the three of us team up and have all our kids write blogs! How about the New York Times? It could use some fresh voices. I’ll start with my son’s observation on receiving his first passport at age 3 months: “aaaooowwwoooo.”