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Kate Adie slams 'nonsense' blogs

Posted: 18/06/07 By: Robert Andrews
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Veteran former BBC News chief correspondent Kate Adie has launched an attack on fellow journalists who write using weblogs.

Ms Adie, who spent 14 years as senior reporter before turning freelance and presenting Radio 4's From Our Correspondent, is said to have made the remarks at an industry event in Stockholm, Sweden.

"There I was tucking into my shrimp salad and listening to one of my heroes, a living icon of broadcast journalism in Britain, dismissing my blog as 'egotistical nonsense'," said Michael Mullane, new media and radio coordinator for the European Broadcasting Union.

"Kate had admitted that what she really objected to was not so much weblogs, as the idea that journalists should spend their 'precious time' writing about how they obtained their stories."

Mr Mullane quoted Ms Adie as saying: “You are blogging to a peer group - that's alright - I can understand there is a demand for that. But journalists shouldn't have any time to blog - there are too many stories waiting to be told!”

Ms Adie is well-known for her forthright reports from conflicts in the Gulf, the Balkans and Rwanda. She has also previously criticised BBC management in her 2002 autobiography.

According to Mr Mullane: "The other thing that Kate objects to is BBC managers who blog during working hours. Their weblogs, she maintains, are proof they have nothing better to do."

Some 74 BBC News editors now write at The Editors group weblog, launched by the corporation in April 2006, while several other reporters including BBC Wales' politics editor Betsan Powys and most recently Europe editor Mark Mardell have started their own versions of a medium first popularised in the corporation by Westminster politics editor Nick Robinson.

Other BBC staff, including director of global news, Richard Sambrook maintain personal weblogs.

Newsnight editor Peter Barron appeared to disagree with Ms Adie's assessment when he used his programme's blog to write: "Nothing better to do than talk to and listen to their audience?"

BBC Blogs co-ordinator Robin Hamman wrote: "Sadly, one of the BBC's most recognisable television news correspondents, just doesn't get the whole blogging journalist thing."

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