Monday 13 April 2009

Editorial: Commentary Or Reportage?

A number of Readers have recently been getting in contact with Oranjepan to try to discover what kind of weird and wacky opinions are held here in the Reading List bunker.

It is clear that as the local media environment continues to evolve the blogosphere has become the most active arena for political debate.

But the way we debate the issues of the day has serious implications for the decisions which we reach in a democracy - as was placed in stark relief at a national level during the Damian McBride resignation scandal this weekend.

Reading List is designed to highlight the different locally-held perspectives to help enable the growing number of Readers judge for yourselves, not to promote any single point of view.

The editorial team here is interested in all sides of the debate and wishes to encourage inclusive participation in the political process. Oranjepan welcomes all contributions and is happy to respond to requests.

So if you have any questions, criticisms or other relevant information to add, please feel free to use the comments section - or respond on your own blog!

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous13 April 2009 at 09:59

    Even racist, misogynist or homophobic opinions?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oranjepan13 April 2009 at 12:05

    Hi Anon,
    I think people should think about what they say before they say it.

    I'll defend the right to free speech, but I reserve the right to disagree with anything which is said, so commenters better be able to back up anything they do say if they don't want their words to reflect badly on them.

    "We don't want no cowboys in this one-horse town"

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous13 April 2009 at 17:38

    Ey up. Of course this site does deal with putting across both sides of the argument, as what it handily does is give readers the opportunity to read relevant reports/blogs written by those involved (or voicing their opinions) in the various stories. But as with all reporting, despite it not always being on purpose, it is sometimes hard to avoid putting a bit of personal bias spin into stories. That is not a criticism, as i enjoy reading this site and it does what it is supposed to do very well, but sometimes it is hard to be completely non-bias.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous14 April 2009 at 00:53

    Yes you certainly put across a one sided Lib Dem bias.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oranjepan14 April 2009 at 13:22

    Hi again Anon,
    can you tell me where I put across a one-sided view please?

    I strive for balance and try to report all the local voices. If you can point me in the direction of any I'm missing I'm more than happy to include them where relevant.

    If you wish to take issue with anything written here I'll try my best to respond fairly.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Tyler14 April 2009 at 17:10

    What this does is give us insight into true Labour values.

    When you look at the comments made by members of Gordon Brown's No10 staff about the reasons for the handicapped state of David Cameron's poor dead son, it really makes you think about issues a little closer to home.

    Missing Files, Children’s Services, an impending investigation & a Labour administration. What exactly was written in those files?

    Is that how our local Labour administration view every family with a handicapped child in Reading. It would not surprise me if the same type of comments where to be found on those hurriedly shredded documents.

    It is now very clear that Labour are too low to pick up, as a national Government and Local Administration.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Nowtas14 April 2009 at 22:21

    Happy to debate on this and certain other blogs around here. I even set up a blog of my own to use for this if anything - trivial or otherwise - gets my goat enough to want to debate it, but only of it something not already on a different blog.

    Plus, of course, I have started my currently fairly dreadful film blog - as well you know Oranjepan. X

    ReplyDelete

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