Many smokers I know say they aren’t addicted, they just choose not to stop. By the same token, I’m seeing if I can give up Coffee House for a fortnight as I take my summer holidays in Sweden. I was asked by a media reporter for the Sunday Herald newspaper last week if I mind when anonymous people attack my pieces online. On the contrary, I replied, it’s why I blog. When James Forsyth got Coffee House going for last year’s May elections, I had no idea I’d end up writing far more as a Coffee House barista than for the magazine. The comments are the pull. There’s something gratifying (and, I admit, addictive) about writing an idea at 2pm and having CoffeeHousers – a strikingly smart, diverse, eloquent and well-informed group of people – comment by 2.15pm. And if I’m trashed, it’s normally for a good reason. In newspapers, writers normally get only two forms of feedback: promotion or a P45. Your friends and parents normally praise what you do, it’s the devil’s own job finding an honest assessment. And this is what the web offers. Up to a point – those thinking “this Nelson drivel is beyond derision” won’t comment, of course. But more often than not in Coffee House, I find the flabbier points in my arguments are noticed and skewered. Many writers would pay good money for that kind of feedback.
On the internet, arguments stand and fall by their strengths – no matter who makes them. The web flattens hierarchies, producing a level arena where eBay sellers compete with John Lewis, but where professional pundits like me must compete with – and, often, be spectacularly outshone by – amateurs. The primary voter opinion, contempt for the whole system, is given a proper venting. Guido, who (as far as I know) is an ordinary bloke who took an interest in stirring things up in politics, has become the guy who David Cameron and Ed Balls privately admit they read regularly. Iain Dale didn’t get elected in 2005 but through his blog wields more influence than any backbencher could. Robert Fisk is knocked off his pedestal and – how you say? – Fisked. ConservativeHome now has such stature that Jonathan Isaby has quit The Telegraph to work as Tim Montgomerie’s co-editor. Like The Spectator magazine, Coffee House is not a mass market product and doesn’t attempt to be. Guido can put up a post saying just “hungover” and get 51 comments. We don’t. But what we get is, for my money, the best comment thread on the web.
When we first started getting comments, James and I wondered if Matt d’Ancona (a novelist, as well as our editor) was adopting different personas such as Tiberius and TGF UKIP, and leaving comments just to make us feel better about the blog thing. The comments being left were suspiciously pithy and knowledgeable. But unless Matt really has been working overtime, the commentators are real and you can often learn more reading the thread than the original post. To my mind, this is what’s best about Coffee House.
My wife says she can tell when I’m blogging, because I smile when I type. But for the next fortnight, my laptop will be closed as the three of us (we called him Alex in the end) head to the archipelago. So if you see my name on Coffee House before 18 August, please trash me and say no one cares what I think. And if you don’t, my wife certainly will.
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