BlogHer - Hipster Goes Travelblogging; Ends Up in Cyber Hell - Comments

I was a fan

Pam — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 10:36:57 -0600

and I never liked that Logan Huntzberger. :)

Nerd's Eye View

Love the GG reference

Maria Niles — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:44:23 -0600

Brilliant, Pam!

Beyond Help

Someone SHOULD know better.

Pam — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:24:56 -0600

The Guardian has a tech section, after all - the quotes from Gogarty (the dad) are from an article in that tech section. They report on Web 2.0 all the time, they deal with commenters, they should have a vague clue. They also have, or used to, EDITORS, who make, in my limited experience as a writer, exacting demands on their writers with regard to published content. Or is the editor a 1.0 feature, also? (God, I hope not. Insert love letter to good editors here.)

I do feel bad for young Max. Blasted full bore before he got out of the gate. There's a great piece of advice for him on /Dan Wilson :

Hello Max! Ditch the Guardian. Set up a blog and carry on blogging. Write your stuff, tell your story. Don’t run away. The criticism hurts (of course it does: I’ve got some ghastly reviews on Amazon) but don’t let your dad and the editors fight your battles. If you reckon you can write, do it. Write and write and write. Some comments will be nice and others will be vile. But write and make that blog happen. If you’re good, you’ll find an audience. If you aren’t, it’ll be a great record for you, your family and friends. The project isn’t invalid just because the comments were bad: you may have simply chosen the wrong platform.

Go blog, young man, like EVERYONE ELSE DOES. If you build it and it's any good, they will come.

Nerd's Eye View

Not "everyone"

KristySF — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 14:17:56 -0600

Hi Virginia,

I completely agree that not everyone realizes how or what they will be called on...and that it can come as an awful surprise.

However, I expect an entire newspaper/journalistic enterprise to know. I think some of my frustration comes from that. I almost take personally the near willful ignorance on the part of the paper. Shouldn't someone there know better?

I get the message that the paper doesn't take blogging very seriously. And sadly, its response -- to get mad at the commenters -- entirely misses the point.

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Kristy Sammis
BlogHer's Conference & Event Planner
e. kristy@blogher.com

Getting called on everything

Virginia DeBolt — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:22:36 -0600

As far as not getting it, I don't think everyone realizes that they will get called on everything these days, including not being upfront about a travel blog. Remember when Oprah supported that book that turned out to be fiction rather than memoir? Whew, what a firestorm. Or how people just disappear from their former position of glory for one stupid remark, like that jerk who commented on Barak Obama by saying he was "clean."

http://www.webteacher.ws/
http://first50.wordpress.com/

Agreed

Pam — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 12:01:58 -0600

It's the kind of stuff young Rory Gilmore would have heard from Logn's dad in private, not the kind of stuff that should be broadcast on the web for all to see.

Nerd's Eye View

Eeeyowch. That poor kid.

zchamu — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:42:54 -0600

The criticisms aren't incorrect. It's just too bad the kid had to bear them.

Visit my blogs at ThreeSeven (all that's irrelevant and amusing) and
ecochick (all that's green, cool and Canadian).

I guess in the end...

KristySF — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:26:37 -0600

What I think I'm most frustrated by is that ANYONE who has EVER read blogs with regularity, or -- heaven forfend -- written one could have told the Guardian not to publish that. That Max's post was flame fodder to the nth degree. How could they not know?

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Kristy Sammis
BlogHer's Conference & Event Planner
e. kristy@blogher.com

Craptastic Writing

Pam — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:06:15 -0600

Yeah, they biffed it, but good. Had the writing been decent, they could have saved themselves from the nepotism charges. Had they been honest about the nepotism, they could have saved themselves the... no, they couldn't have. Even had they disclosed, the crappiness of the writing doomed this kid from the get go. Not disclosing the ties just made it a LOT worse.

But it is a fascinating study in how NOT to do a blog, no? And how not to misunderestimate your readers. They WILL out you, if you don't do it yourself. Wal-Mart travelblog, anyone?

Nerd's Eye View

I was fascinated by this

KristySF — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:47:11 -0600

I agree with your assessment, that the Guardian blew it. I understand that the criticisms of poor Max were harsh, but it wasn't his private online diary, it was -- as you point out -- a Guardian-branded blog.

It seemed to me that most of the commenters, even when blasting Max, were really voicing their anger at the paper and its editors. I was angry, too, for lots of reasons:

1. The writing was crap. Do the editors not think that blogs are edit-worthy? If not, why not?

2. Why did they select Max in the first place? Was his writing better than other youngsters in the same situation? If so, where is the evidence of that? And why wasn't he held to that standard -- his first post was horrid; if he was selected based on some editorial criteria, he certainly wasn't held to them. Which makes it seem like he was selected for reasons other than his talent.

3. It was evident that The Guardian was not upfront, authentic, or transparent in their selection of Max. This made everything worse.

4. To me, this whole thing was a huge example of mainstream media not "getting" social media at all. At. All.

Thanks for posting!

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Kristy Sammis
BlogHer's Conference & Event Planner
e. kristy@blogher.com

Hipster Goes Travelblogging; Ends Up in Cyber Hell

Pam — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:20:01 -0600

Wow, talk about your crash and burn. Young Max Gogarty (son of freelance travel writer Paul Gogarty) landed something of a dream gig. He was to blog about his travels in India and Thailand for that grand British paper, the Guardian. Off goes this adorable hipster boy, not before admitting that he likes to blow his money on "food and skinny jeans" and he's "not entirely sure what appeals to me about travelling. Maybe the lack of work or study? The mayhem? The imagined company of beautiful girls ... all very good reasons to travel." Immediately, the savaging begins.

Commenter three throws the first punch..

posh 19 year old goes to Thailand to find himself amongst all the other 'gappers', and we can follow his every move? wow.

and the crowd follows. The kid goes down, hard, and Guardian takes a pretty hefty pounding too. Also, from the comments:

It seems there is a Paul Gogarty who already writes for the Guardian Travel section. Coincidence? I think not.

I like the Guardian usually, but sometimes, they don't half get it wrong. Moneyed youngster goes travelling to the usual places to get drunk and meet girls? Well, bugger me, a stroke of genius.

It doesn't take long for the rest of the travelsphere to chime in. The blog launched on February 14th.

On that same day, Digital Lifestyles posts a "best of" from the 500 or so comments - so many, and in some cases, so harsh, that the Guardian decided to close comments.

Within about five hours the article publishing, the “oh, we’re so open and _love_ users comments” Guardian took the decision to close the comments, citing:

As we are increasingly having to take down vicious personal abuse directed against the writer, in open contravention of the community standards, this discussion will shortly close. But thanks for the suggestions that we did receive, and for your criticisms, which have been noted.

On February 15th, Ecotplasmosis hurls some shockingly mean and painfully funny vitriol at young Max - this is just the beginning of John Brownlee's dissection:

Meet Max Gogarty, the latest addition to the Guardian’s company of travel bloggers. Don’t let his appearance fool you. Beneath those £400 sunglasses, that meticulously tossed coiffureage and the carefully cultivated stubble perforating his lilly-white androgyne throat throbs the lion’s pulse of an adventurer.

On February 17th, Upgrade, Travel Better posts How Not To Launch a Travel Blog - featuring more of those star comments and more sharp words for the Guardian:

Britain’s Guardian had my respect and admiration for some time. Until Thursday morning. And all because of a travel blog.

It’s not because they started a travel blog, per se. It’s because they disrespected their readers so completely by publishing a poorly-written, self-indulgent case study in nepotism. And they featured it on the front page.

Also on the 17th, The Guardian's technology section reports on the entire hate-filled mess in Hate Mail Hell of a Gap Year Blogger. Gogarty's father sounds off.

'There is no nepotism. I hardly ever write for the Guardian,' said Gogarty. 'He is not an attention seeker. He is just bright and 19 and middle-class - and that's a crime in Britain.'

'Max won't be writing any more blogs, I thought I'd bring all those heroic internet warriors the good news. Max's trip (which he paid for himself I'm afraid - sorry) has got off to the worst possible start and he's feeling pretty grim You may like or dislike the blog, but the cruelty is shocking, if quintessentially British.'

Why did readers go crazy? What pissed them off so much? From The Way of the Web

It got complaints because it wasn't honest and open. Disclosure isn't an unfamiliar concept to journalists or bloggers, so I'm still amazed it proves so difficult for corporate or company-approved bloggers to understand that hiding things are pointless. You should be honest,
to the point of stating why you can't discuss certain topics on here. I wouldn't blog about someone I didn't like at work, for example, or a top secret project, because they'd be biased, or damaging to that project.

It got complaints because the only response was to close the comments. In later stories, you saw responses from someone claiming to be Max's dad, Paul Gogarty, and also Emily Bell. And even though there was still blame on the 'nasty bullies', and a time limit on comments, you can already see that the nature of the comments changes slightly when there is actually someone listening and responding.

And from Gawker

Cultural Revolution aside, we would venture that the "recent pillorying" of young Max happened to be because readers felt insulted that the Guardian tried to put one over on them. First of all, they hired the kid of a former travel writer write a lame travel blog about his gap year. Secondly! The kid's writing had an almost unparalleled skill at being annoying.

My two cents? The Guardian blew it. Max's first post is so insipid and irritating that I'm not sure how he landed the gig. Did they look at his writing? Was there any kind of editorial input or did they just figure writing skill runs in the blood? No matter how the Guardian tries to spin it, it's not a personal blog, it's a Guardian branded blog (Just like this is a BlogHer branded blog) and casts aspersions on the Guardian's editorial quality.The writing isn't any worse that that of your typical gap year blogger, but it is terrible stuff for a (once) respected publication like the Guardian.

They also blew the disclosure thing, breaking rule number one in blogland. It wouldn't have been so hard to have the Guardian introduce Max as a second generation traveler - "you may have seen his dad's work, we're going to see if Max has the chops to follow in his ink-steps"- or some such thing. Instead, they threw Max to the mob and let him present a typical 19 year old concerned with what I call "Babes, Beaches, and Beer Travel." They published bad writing with easily traced nepotism ties, leaving both the writer and the paper open to attack. Badly played all around.

Pam blogs about travel and other adventures at Nerd's Eye View.