Open Letter to Adam Smith, aka The Drunk Journalist

Dear Adam,

I love Birmingham and spend an inordinate amount of my time defending its reputation. It is friendlier than London, less self-consciously cool than Manchester and more diverse than Cardiff. It is the city that gave the world the Balti and Black Sabbath, Cat Deeley and custard powder, Jasper Carrot and Jamelia.

And I will put it on record I ruddy love the Brummie accent, even though one survey claims a person with a Brummie accent seems less intelligent than someone who just stays quiet.

Therefore I was disappointed with the predictable unleashing of Brummie-ism over your now infamous drunken YouTube rant. The fact you are a Brummie seemed to add an extra layer of sneering to the fallout and so I tried to defend you as much as possible this week.

 ”I am a bit of an idiot,” you slur at one point. True enough, but you’re our idiot Smithy.

But of all the ways in which you let himself down, one line sticks out above all others. When the mysterious Dutch interviewer asks if what you’re writing is going online, you snarl back, “It’s going in print. I’m a proper news journalist.”

Oh Smithy.

We have heard about these dinosaurs who still cling onto the idea the world is flat and that the prominence of print journalism over online remains unquestionable. But like UFOs or James Blunt fans, I am not sure that I ever thought they existed.

Adam Tinworth, Head of Blogging at RBI, gave a lecture this week on the role of blogs in the brave new media world. He is at the vanguard of the changes, and outlined how blogs are key for media organisations hoping to connect with this overwhelming, ever-evolving “distributed space” of which you are so disdainful.

He told us that choosing the most appropriate medium to present our stories is crucial to maintaining the bond with our audiences which we are so desperate to cling onto. If Samuel Pepys were alive today, surely even he would embrace the blogosphere. It would look something like this.

Blogs are the future Smithy. Earlier this year the Observer published a list of the top 50 most powerful blogs and it makes fascinating reading. As a “proper news journalist” you will undoubtedly be struck by the presence of five celebrity gossip blogs in the list.

But eight of the sites are political, like Talking Points Memo which specialises in investigative reporting that the big papers, lacking funds, inclination, or both, no longer undertake. Last year a report published on the site about the White House firing several attorneys unsympathetic to the Bush agenda led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The blog’s creator, Joshua Micah Marshall, received the prestigious George Polk journalism award for the piece, the first time ever the prize had gone to a blogger.

How’s that for proper news?

Or what about Beppe Grillo, the Italian comedian and commentator railing against corruption in a state where Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi controls much of the mass media?

Is he less of a journalistic force than you Smithy, slumped on the pavement, cutting and pasting BBC reports?

Adam Tinworth said for the first time this year online revenue overtook print revenue at RBI. It is a watershed and one that may well be replicated across the industry over the coming years. Blogging is an essential way for the 21st Century journalist to connect with his readers, which is what journalism has always been about.

Although the methods of reaching out to readers are changing, the need to do so does not. The fundamental rules of journalism remain the same. Like the one about how hacks should be able to hold their drink…

Yours as ever,

Rob Alderson