An article on blogs in Mauritius: what a shock!
The Mauritian blogosphere has taken the rise. The eldest bloggers have been active for nearly a decade now. Mauritian blogs are listed on the Mauritius Blog List and Island Website and debates are hot on the past, present and future of blogs, be they on independent hosting or on blogging platforms. Some blogs are visitor baits and others are in niches. Yashvin and Ludovic have been interviewed quite often in the Mauritian press.
And then comes this article on L’Express. Huge publicity for Over Blog, a free French blog platform. The objective (improving the knowledge of blogs in Mauritius) is very commendable but the tone and the choice of words is not really that engaging. Even if the author points out the fact that blogging is not new, the whole tone runs like… “go on people, this is the new craze, open up a blog on Over Blog”. Does that author know that there are hundreds of platforms and that with a WordPress MU platform, any site can become a hoster (e.g: Le Monde)?
Another thing is that the author qualifies the blog as a way to express oneself without having to wait for a comment publication in the press or online. This gives the idea that a blog is like a blank page where you say one thing and go away. This also shows complete oblivion. No information on the way the web works, the communication levers to use to get a blog running and have visitors. The building processes. Say something on your blog but if you do not know how to promote your content and are not ready to fill up the space nearly everyday, it’s no use.
Worse. Let me quote this part:
Si la communauté des internautes apprécient ces opinions directes et sans complaisance, de nombreux journalistes et éditorialistes ont décrié la manière non professionnelle de donner des éléments d’informations pas toujours contre-vérifiés contrairement à la presse traditionnelle*.
As said earlier, having an article on blogs is commendable but the author should have dug a little more in the blogging world and analysed the life and actions of bloggers, especially Mauritian ones, before publishing such a shallow article on blogs.
*If the community of users appreciate these direct and uncompromising opinions, many journalists and columnists have stated the unprofessional manner of providing information not always cross-checked unlike the traditional press.
Let’s talk about this…
Do you think that blogs are still not very well known in Mauritius? As a blogger, do you feel that such articles are bad for your image? Do you think that journalists should read more blogs before writing articles on them?
About the Author:
Sachin D. Brojmohun has extensive experience in terms of graphic design, CSS integration, usability and accessibility as well as in SEO. More about him and the Web Design Bureau of Mauritius here: Web Design Mauritius.
Twitter: YadhavDeerpaul
says:
The point to worry about is nearly all bloggers whether famous or not famous or Mauritian or not Mauritian are being critized negatively.
Tech Crunch editor/blogger, Arrighton, was recently critized badly by a famous tech/computer magazine. They said that Arrighton was just spreading false news that there is something called Nexus One. See today the Nexus One really exists.
I guess that even Amitabh Bachan faced quite a lot of negative critism when he launched his blog very long ago.
And let the writer of the article know that there are some Mauritian blogs which are much more popular than their own website …
Cheers to Mauritian bloggers!
Twitter: sachindb
says:
Yeah? I’ve read a lot on the Arrington/Ulanoff issue. I agree that not all blogs are good or do cross-check the references, not all should be taken in a negative way. On the Mauritian scene, social media is reduced to Facebook and blogs are not known at all. True enough the author didn’t make a good research. The latter should however have had enough judgement to dig a little further in the industry.
Twitter: yashvin
says:
I came across this article too, and coming from l’express, it’s nothing new
btw, be careful else you may officially be considered as an anti-express blogger too lol!
As you said, the way the article is written can make the reader believe that “blogging” has just been discovered… The journalist is surely the “Christophe Colomb” of blogging… Perhaps someone might find it important to notify him about the blog of l’express lol.
Skyblog… Did you know that loads of people have skyblog accounts in Mauritius? Before landing on wordpress, I used skyblog for months to post photos of my university friends and myself. It was loads of fun! I hope he knows about this site…. else he might write another useless article.
Finally, I hope that the journalist does not come up with an article like “hi5, le site social networking pour les rencontres”
Now, lets come to your questions :
No, I wouldn’t say that blogs are unknown to Mauritian Internet users (who are on at least on facebook or to those who use internet in some real way). Facebook has greatly helped in expanding the world of blogging and even before the boom of this network in Mauritius, search engines brought most of the hits.
For your 2nd question, I would reply “No”. Why? Simply because it is l’express. Previous incidents have proved that they do not always provide reliable news.
And definitely, they should break their shells and read what others are writing. If bloggers read newspapers, why don’t they journalists read blogs? Are we inferior? No, in fact, we, bloggers were the first to allow people to share their views. Newspapers included blogs only a few months ago.
But again, from previous experiences, journalists would ask themselves : “Why do they need to read those amateurs articles?!” because they don’t understand that what we do, we do it because its only a passion…. not our gagne-pain.
Twitter: sachindb
says:
Don’t worry, this isn’t an anti-Express issue, just a point of view on an author’s article. As you stated, he could have started by seeing what his own company was doing in terms of blogging. It is a pity that all this is not yet known. In any case, only L’Express has an interactive side to its site. What I could criticize on that might be the lack of reactions but here again, it is the way all newspapers having comments on their sites do. Now, maybe the Net is becoming too cluttered for those knowing nothing or practically nothing on social media to get all the needed information.
Yes, Facebook helped a lot in driving traffic. To be honest, today, my top referrer is no longer Google but Twitter. I think that we should put this one in the equation now.
§ 1332nd’s comment. The author is young and does not know much, but as we cannot know that in the beginning, people might get the wrong idea on blogs.
One thing that’s interesting in blogging is the “signaux faibles” that a professional writer might catch and break a big a scoop just because bloggers are closer to the information and to the population’s response. But here again cross checking is vital.
Other than that, I don’t think that bloggers should be considered as inferior. We have our own writing style and way of blogging which gives some character to the text, our character. This gives more lively yet very biased results.
En tant que journaliste/blogeur, ma réaction sera mitigée. Je ne vais point commenter sur la polémique, mais juste vous présenter une couche d’outils de compréhension sur ce cas précis.
Déjà, le papier est signé “La Rédaction”. Non, cela ne veut pas dire qu’ils se sont mis à 5-6 pour écrire ce texte. Il s’agit probablement d’un stagiaire qui n’a pas encore le droit de signer son texte (oui, signer son texte se mérite dans la presse). Je ne cherche pas des excuses au texte, mais c’est déjà un premier élément pour expliquer le contenu.
Deuxièmement, je n’explique pas non plus le choix de ‘Overblog’, mais j’ai ma petite idée: une plate-forme francophone. Le/la journaliste (stagiaire) a du plonger sur le premier qu’il/elle a trouvé sur une recherche google(.fr).
Je vous entends déjà crier à “l’amateurisme” d’ici. Non. Le/la journaliste ne s’y connaît pas en blog, on le sent. Mais son texte n’est pas destiné à des pro que vous êtes, mais les lecteurs lambdas. Dont ceux qui ont vaguement entendu parler de blogs, qui tombent dessus par hasard en “googlant”, mais qui imaginent qu’on doit s’y connaître en programmation pour en tenir un.
La direction de rédaction n’a pas commandé un dossier exhaustif comme celui de Week-End Scope ou d’autres magazines, mais un texte court, concis sur les blogs. C’est tout le défi quotidien de la profession: apprendre suffisamment sur un truc pour l’expliquer clairement aux lecteurs dans la journée (ou l’heure des fois). C’est ce qui était attendu de l’auteur, c’est ce que celui-ci a rendu.
Twitter: sachindb
says:
Merci pour ces précisions 1132nd. Il est vrai que nous ne connaissons pas tout le fonctionnement de la structure journalistique. Loin de moi l’idée de mettre le texte en confrontation avec des blogueurs “pro” (je dirai plutôt expérimenté) mais, pour un stagiaire en journalisme, je trouve que l’élément clé d’analyse et d’interprétation de tout travail de ce type n’a pas été respecté. Je comprends aussi que nous pouvons mettre cela sur le compte de l’apprentissage.
Ensuite vient la question pure de méthodologie. Je ne crie pas à l’amateurisme. Dans la relève de ce défi quotidien, les jeunes journalistes n’ont-ils pas de mentor? Comment se passe l’apprentissage? Ont-ils des contraintes spécifiques? Ne rien connaitre sur un sujet et avoir à pondre un papier dessus est effectivement une épreuve mais pourquoi ne pas le faire à la première personne, du genre, dire à l’auteur de chercher et de comprendre rapidement le fonctionnement d’un blog hébergé (blogger, over blog… etc.) et se positionner en tant que novice en apprentissage sur le sujet. Cela aurait permis de ne pas publier la partie polémique.
Bref, je comprends mieux comment ce type d’articles arrivent à être publiés.
I don’t think we should fuel the “rapport de forces” between traditional press and social media/blogs in Mauritius. They should be complementary, as it is the case in many other media landscapes. This is the belief my colleagues and I nurture and this is why we decided to simultaneously invest the local blog landscape and twitter.
The ideal situation would be when journalists pick up a news item from a blog or a tweet and develop a full-fledged article on the subject, citing the blogger with either his real name or his alias and his blog. The inverse should also be possible, where bloggers add layers of information to a published article on some subject.
I strongly believe we are not far from this situation. We are nearing the electoral campaign and brace yourself for some live reporting via twitter when we will be infiltrating “reunions privées” or other rallies around the island. At the same time, as professional journalists, we will require any information you could gather in your own area about the state of the campaign.
This is the ultimate complementarity of social media and professional journalism and this is what we should all aspire to. And we will have the occasion to do so too.
Twitter: sachindb
says:
I fully agree with you on this. I also like the idea of layering in-depth information on blog/article bases.
It would really be great if the complementarity you’re describing takes place in Mauritius. Will the Mauritian general elections fuel that, I just hope so. Then we’ll be one of the upcoming trends in the information distribution system. Maybe it’ll be a good thing to build a Twitter list for information gathered on the electoral campaign.
Just like you won’t get Yashvin contributing positively to a press article, you won’t get some journalists giving credit to bloggers/tweeps. It should not be held as the ambient relationship though. The problem, may arise from old-timers in the profession: journalists who still cling to a conception of their job as they used to practise it 10 to 15 years ago. But you do find professional journalists mixing up with bloggers/tweeps nowadays. And if we can land a hallmark of cooperation during the next elections, this will pull other media platforms to consider working with social media.
Twitter: sachindb
says:
I understand that some persons fear for their jobs, especially the old-timers who might be “left-asides” of the new technology. In any case, there is a new school that’s taking on. Communication does not remain in old media like radio, press and tv. All of those are bound to fuel up their articles with new media/social media and also have to work with those.
As you put it, many people will not cite sources and this will lead to some “katana-sharing” among bloggers and reporters but, at the end of the day, we’ll all be rowing in the same boat, isn’t it?
Twitter: sjdvda
says:
That is very well said 1132nd. I totally agree with you.
Twitter: sjdvda
says:
I honestly do not give a damn about (nonconstructive) criticism. I blog for the fun of it and whether I have half a reader or half a million readers do not matter to me.
And just like that, I’ve committed a major blogging faux-pas. Please don’t lynch me.
Twitter: sachindb
says:
Nobody will lynch anyone here Saajid. I understand your point of view, blogging is first of all a hobby for most persons before being a professional tool, therefore who cares really about traffic?
Twitter: sjdvda
says:
By the way, Sachin, we all know a Mauritian blogger who really cares about traffic (to the point that some even call him a traffic whore).
I neither blame him nor condone his actions; I believe that he blogs for entirely different reasons than me and he is free to do so.
Twitter: sachindb
says:
You’re talking about Kurt? Well I can’t really define his blog, the concept is based on traffic not blogging so it can’t really be that bad, its a traffic oriented blog. I am guest blogger there and I am happy to do it as some of my posts get more visibility there.
Twitter: kurtavish
says:
I missed this article while being flooded with maintainance work these last few days. So let me add my few cents.
First I’ll answer your questions then try to answer some other’s commentators too. My answers are however my own opinion and are very different to many opinions above but I am in no way saying the other’s opinion are bad. Each one have his owns.
“Do you think that blogs are still not very well known in Mauritius?”
Yes it is still not very known. Why? If you consider people on Facebook itself who know what is a blog (they know its THAT THING where someone write his life story)!
But as days are going on, more people are discovering the existence on blogs. I don’t know for others, but I do not do promotional campaign on Facebook yet (maybe later or not). Most people who became fan and subscribed came from Google.mu and then they look for me on Facebook. Some just become a fan and other subscribe via rss. Others just remember the address and will check back when there is something they like. (Eg cyclone or results or astronomy events or music..etc).
But considering all that I will say many Mauritian do not know or if they know, they are not so active (YET). Take a simple example: A cyclone is in Mauritius and I manage to put my post up the front of the news. How much you expect from a population of “say 500000″ internet users? The answer is around 3000 to 4000. Where are the others?
As a blogger, do you feel that such articles are bad for your image? Do you think that journalists should read more blogs before writing articles on them?
“As a blogger, do you feel that such articles are bad for your image?”
Not really. The journalist is free to promote whoever he wants. It’s not a press promotion that creates recognition. It’s a long term work which does it. On the other hand, maybe the journalist didn’t investigate well and promoted only one service above. He/she should have put a sort of more solid article listing the different services allowing to create a blog instead of just emphasizing on one single company (which makes it look like a sponsored review lol).
But still, as 1132 said, maybe its a newcommer. But next time the article must be a solid one instead of just promoting one thing. (Else put a disclosure mentioning he is promoting it).
“Do you think that journalists should read more blogs before writing articles on them?”
Yes. Sa vrai. Because recently I even found someone saying things about without really knowing me lol. He even claim I am a college student creating a farm. Well I do not mind since he does not even know me and my work but this can apply to journalists too. They must read and know the blogger and even how he works before writing. This applies to every journalist (not targeting anyone or any newspaper).
Kurt Avish´s last blog ..Solar Eclipse January 2010 Photos From Mauritius
Twitter: sachindb
says:
Really appreciate your comment Kurt. The web is evolving fast and Mauritius is moving with it. It would be really great if the Mauritian blogs kept up with what they do and have journalism evolving with the new age of information.
Anyways, people shouldn’t take seriously those newspapers that use Arial as their logo typeface