Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Mary Dejevsky Update

Just letting everyone know that I (like others) have had a reply from Mary Dejevsky of the Independent.

Here it is below - it's polite and fair and above all concedes that we do exist:
oh dear, more and more hot water. i set out to do one thing, which was to reply to iain dale's question - why so few female bloggers. he was talking about politics, but my impression - yes, impression - was similar. so i offered some reasons why. it now transpires that i (and perhaps he) have been looking in completely the wrong places, or not looking assiduously enough at all. lo and behold there are hundreds and hundreds of women bloggers out there - all demonstrating their existence. that's great. i have no idea how to count bloggers.

one day maybe i'll write another blogging column, repenting. not quite yet, though. i've still got a whole lot of protests to answer. all the best, mary
I'll be interested to see what she comes up with by way of a repenting article - but even this goes to show that we *do* have the power to change mainstream media perception, which is not only interesting but also quite exciting.

All credit to Mary for replying - I think we can probably call off the attack dogs now!

22 comments:

Fraudulent Little Tart said...

Call off the dogs? But mine are here and so very eager. In this case, however, I will listen to your superior blogging experience.
I will just mention that she uses the term 'reason why' AGAIN! Be calm my inner pedant, be calm.
(I am still tempted to post a blog titled ‘Contains references to both childcare and gynaecology’.)

Billy said...

That's a better reply than the one Spinny got, she's still a bit shy with the shift key though... I will be looking out for the "actually there are female bloggers actually" article in the Indy soon.

Tabby Rabbit said...

>i have no idea how to count bloggers.one day maybe i'll write another blogging column>

Great. We look forward to it.

Wyndham said...

She sounded... defiant. I like that in a lady.

Moominmama said...

i wouldn't call off the dogs. she admitted she was wrong, but flat out said that she had no intention of printing a retraction in the near future. that's the definition of irresponsible journalism. furthermore, she wasn't even very polite or aplogetic. i thought that letter sounded definsive and sarcastic. she can go fuck herself.

Urban Chick said...

go us (well, you, tom, scroob and spinny)

i was too busy bathing my kids to email her

i think that's a result of sorts

shall we shift our attention to mr dale now? :-)

rockmother said...

Yay! At least she had the gumption to admit she hadn't been looking very thoroughly. I hope she does write something better than her last effort and in the meantime learns how to use the shift key.

Anonymous said...

Little bit condescending ? [MJ emergency response]

Spinsterella said...

Wow - fairly coherent and semi-proper sentences and everything!

(Maybe her shift key doesn't work?)

the Beep said...

she's right tho... how do you count bloggers?
And if she knows she can't, how can she make an assertion about gender?
I think you're being too damn polite!

patroclus said...

I guess you count bloggers in the same way as you count TV viewers - by asking a representative proportion of the population if they have a blog, and then extrapolating that to the whole population. I just don't know of any market research that's been conducted like that yet. Mostly the media seems to be taking its statistics from Technorati, which only counts numbers of blogs (not bloggers) worldwide.

Her piece was an opinion column, rather than news, and I think she's probably learned a salient lesson about expressing opinions that aren't borne out in fact. If it was a news piece, I'd have been livid.

patroclus said...

Phew indeed, BF. I fear excitement and confrontation, and can now happily go back to musing about imaginary festivals and the possible whereabouts of my missing hand towel (on which more later).

Sean McManus said...

She's got it all the wrong way around. You find out your facts, then form an opinion, then write your column. You don't form an opinion, write your column, then find out your facts. It's really poor journalism, even for a comment column.

If she had any professional pride at all, she would write her follow-up column right away. She could spin an opinion about the difficulty of finding decent blogs if she wanted. But as it is, she's written half a page in a daily newspaper which she now concedes is ill-informed, and she's going to let it stay on the record uncorrected. Like it doesn't matter or something.

Yes, she owes those who protested an apology. But she has an even greater responsibility to all the readers she misled, who didn't realise what they were reading was based on substantial misunderstandings and assumptions.

There's not much point in changing mainstream media perception if mainstream journalists just write a load of crap anyway and leave it uncorrected.

Full credit to her for replying, all the same.

Tim F said...

I think I've sussed the lower-case thing. Poor Mary doesn't really understand all this techie stuff (btw did anyone hear John Prescott talking about blogs on the Today prog this morning?) but she has sussed that young people with their mobile txt thingies and instnt msg and wotnot don't use caps. So maybe she was trying to get on our level.

(Or maybe I'm just grumpy 'cos I didn't get a reply.)

Occasional Poster of Comments said...

If I'd written a piece like that, getting things so monumentally wrong, and in response received so much info that was apparently new to me, I'd want to write another piece immediately. If only for the fee.

Actually, maybe that's her tactic. Write something incorrect, then write a follow-up, thus doubling her money. Genius.

Heather said...

If she doesn't write a follow up correcting her mistake she should at least issue a retraction.

I think it's the least that's deserved.

Occasional Poster of Comments said...

>>Genius.<<

Erm, assuming she doesn't care about her journalistic integrity, that is.

Oh, wait...

ScroobiousScrivener said...

Nice. Honestly she seems to be getting more repentant by the minute. It pleaseth me. I do wish she'd write a follow-up though, it would be so much more interesting (and yes, she owes her readers a correction).

Annie said...

"Am I alone in wondering how you can possibly call yourself a journalist and expect to be taken seriously if you won't do capitals, can't write sentences and don't realise that punctuation is there to help you?"

No, you are not alone. I'm more shocked by the grammar than I am by the sexism.

FirstNations said...

uh huh, uh huh, now wait, here it comes in another month-the uppity ho bag article. see, part one of her evil 'too lazy to do her own research' plan has socketed into place like a square peg in a black hole. or something.

I HAVE POWERS.

DavetheF said...

Great work, Patro! I told ya she'd find out bloggers bite back. But refusing to print a retraction is absolutely typical of her arrogant attitude. Write to her boss!

Anonymous said...

I'm with Chaucer's Bitch.

(It feels amazingly good to say that!)

Sean McManus analyses it up perfectly. Sadly, far too many columnists in so-called newspapers don't understand that rule, and get paid obscene money for utter tosh. And considering how they like to slag off people in other professions. Not to mention amateurs.

She should hang her head in shame.