Stealing Rupert

Masked and sometimes caped crusaders occupy mythic positions in society. The Scarlet Pimpernel, Batman – in fact any super-hero you care to think of – use anonymity to progress good against entrenched, begrudging power cliques.

Onto the stage – the digital stage and this time in real-life, strides blogger and prolific Tweeter – Grog’s Gamut. He is a Twitter sub-culture phenomenon, blogging and tweeting anonymously and with undoubted journalism skill. The package is now in the open, his mask ripped off.

The eagle landed during the recent Australian federal election when ABC supremo – and prolific Tweeter himself – Mark Scott, quoted the anonymous blogger. Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian is heavily parodied in Grog Gamut’s blog for perceived bias. With someone of Scott’s clout quoting him, The Australian panicked and reckoned they had to unmask an adversary. Murdoch has a history of trying to control the internet. Some see this as his achilles heel.

Who cares? – you may ask, but this is actually an extremely curious development. It could be the finger pulled out of the dam.

Journalism, traditional Clark Kent style journalism, is changing fast due to the worldwide love-fest with the internet. This is intimately understood by journalists themselves better than anyone else. Journalists are naturally pre-disposed to investigate and write about things anyway, so there is a sound argument that all things ‘Internet’ won’t change actual journalism that much anyhow.

What will change, as advocated by the likes of future technology writer and thinker extraordinaire, Clay Shirky, is the monetisation of journalism. That new ways of getting reporting and writing about the world out to everyone, need be found. New thinking is needed.

People like Rupert Murdoch hate the idea of relinquishing their hold on power. To them, anonymous and unpaid bloggers like Grog’s Gamut, who write for the passion and fun of it, threaten their editorial control over news and media. But really, it’s people like Grog’s Gamut who need to be heeded.

Journalism will always require skill and passion – that won’t ever change. Journalism has never been about assuming power of media content distribution. That’s a different, much more modern beast. That’s the part that needs to change.