The Sadness of Priorities

We all have to prioritise our lives. And it was through this prioritisation that I made last night’s Thai curry. This was as enjoyable as it was hot – as you’d expect when using a Penang paste, with red chillies as its lead ingredient.

Organisations also have to prioritise, and that includes those in the media. Stories have shelf lives. Some may have longer lives than others, but ultimately the whole thing moves on to other stories. So it has been, and clearly to the dislike of some in the blogosphere, with Smeargate (alternative titles in yesterday’s posts, in case anyone’s interested).

Why should there be such a dislike of how the media mainstream prioritises stories? Here the blogosphere reaches the limit of its power, singly or collectively: the original story was newsworthy enough – and serious enough – to command the highest billing, and as a result of the resultant furore there was a resignation from within Downing Street. There is a feeling among some bloggers that there should have been more resignations, with rather more folks involved, but the simple and sad fact is that not enough concrete facts could be marshalled to this end. So the story slipped down the list of media organisation priorities.

Equally sad was the problem that many in the blogosphere had with accepting that Smeargate had dropped off the news radar. The thirst for more scalps needed to be sated: if the mainstream would not keep the story high on the agenda, there must be some kind of sinister conspiracy at work. There wasn’t, of course, and here the blogosphere does itself no favours: out comes the usual, and slightly paranoid, thought that the government, BBC and Guardian (together with any other organisations that let the story drop) are moving as one to conceal some kind of truth – although what kind of truth that is, we don’t know, as nobody has managed to stand any story up.

And, in any case, even bloggers have to move on – today we have the fallout from yet another gate – Greengate. Mustn’t be left behind, eh?