Who in the blogosphere, I wonder, recognises the name of John Ward? He hadn’t registered on my radar, I confess, until a former work colleague took time out to put me straight. Ward was the first to publish the Pa Broon medication story, and has been running with it for some months. He doesn’t actually blog, but has a website and sends out a regular email post.
Unfortunately, as Ward himself concedes, he clearly believes that Brown is on a particular kind of medication, but has no means of proving it. And, without the proof, his story is going nowhere. Other better known bloggers and pundits are drifting away, and Ward’s use of his newsletter style postings to tell of disputes with neighbours is not helping him.
At least Ward has discovered one thing about the blogosphere: even those bringing the exclusives to the table can drift out of favour. He is also right that there are too many folks chasing cheap popularity and embracing a variety of conspiracy theories along the way. His angle on “serious” journalists getting in on the New Media is, of course, already happening with sites like the Huffington Post, which I check out regularly.
What is happening over in the USA, I reckon, will not take too much prompting to happen here: conspiracy theorists calling their opponents “liars”, along with so much that is blatant party propaganda, will not survive competition with anything half decently presented and properly researched.
At which point John Ward may come right back into favour, so I for one hope that he sticks around.
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