Neither politician nor journalist: Iain Dale, professional political blogger

Iain Dale has more money and job security than the average British journalist, but he doesn't call himself one.

While he remains on David Cameron's candidate wishlist he has, for the time being, put aside his political ambitions - the Conservatives in Maidstone were suspicious of his high national profile, he says.

Instead he's a professional political blogger, who despite his ambitions and media appearances, earns his lifestyle through neither politics nor journalism.

About 20 minutes into my interview at the 4 Millbank Atrium cafe with Dale, he asks me if I mind waiting while he blogs Prime Minister's Questions.

This involves a short walk to his office located close nearby, though Dale says he finds himself watching more and more content online, rather than going to the house himself.

While one of his office staff finds me a Wifi code for my laptop, I have plenty of time to take in the surroundings and a framed montage of Dale's press clippings catches my eye.

Dale, meanwhile, writes straight onto his blogspot.com page, firing off his immediate thoughts: it's important he does this, he tells me, as Sky News often picks up his stuff.

Iain Dale is undoubtedly a brand: partly self-created, but never intentional, he says.

"I'd love to say I had a grand masterplan, but I didn't. I had never heard of the word blog back in early 2002."

PMQs over and blogged, we get back to talking. While he plays down any notion of his being a journalist, he's proud that he's on the current affairs radar. 

He tells me about meeting BBC journalists the day after he criticised the corporation's US election coverage.

"All of the head honchos at the BBC had read it. Certainly, 10 years ago, people like me wouldn't have had it listened to," he says.

It is about marketing: small blogs 'beg him', he says, to be included in his 'Daley Dozen', knowing that they will get a surge in traffic from his recommendation.

A bit like getting into the Drudge Report? "Not quite on that scale," he laughs.

Dale is not a journalist
Dale doesn't make enough money to live off from his blog.

He gets £12-15,000 per year from advertising, but, Dale adds, a lot of his income is on the back of the blog, if not directly related. The work he does for Sky and the Telegraph, for example.

So why doesn't he call himself a journalist? "Most of my blog is opinion, and that's not journalism," he says, although he does have a few years experience as a financial journalist in the 90s, he says.

Money and traffic
Dale's online analytics, which certainly rival a regional newspaper's, have caused ranklings in the past - not least with Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads, a persistent thorn in Dale's side.

"I'm completely transparent about my figures and I always was," he says. Using Google Analytics he records around 70,000 unique users per month, though it's probably nearer 85-90,000 he adds, if RSS subscriptions are taken into account.

"The demographics of my readership should mean I have a lot more advertising than I do have - 10 per cent of my readers earn over £100,000 per year," he says.

But he says, the partisan nature of the blog, deters many potential advertisers.

In the past, mainstream media journalists 'looked down their noses' and thought that bloggers 'were either failed or wannabe journalists,' which may be true in some cases, he adds.

But now that journalists have taken to blogging themselves, it's not really an issue. "I've been called worse things than a journalist," he jokes.

The new magazine
Dale's latest venture is Total Politics magazine. Given the current downturn in the print industry, it's an interesting time to be running a new publication, surely?

"I must admit, when we developed the business plan there wasn't any sign that there was a recession in the offing," he says, adding that they are now looking for alternative revenue streams through events, training and seminars.

Financial situation aside, Dale is happy with the magazine on an editorial level, after having sorted out a few design issues.

The most important thing, he says, was to make it non-partisan, a challenge given his own, and Michael Ashcroft's, involvement.

But, 'even Kevin Maguire says he can't spot any political bias' now, Dale says, handing me the issue with Hazel Blears's interview to take home.

And what about the allegation that he's not signed up to the Press Complaints Commission's (PCC) code (Tim Ireland, again)? It's simply not something they'd considered, he answers.  

"We may do - we haven't actively thought about it yet," he adds.

[Update: in the time since this interview was conducted, Total Politics has now signed up to the PCC code]

The blog mould
Dale's daily agenda is pretty much what he wants it to be: several times he reminds me that he started the blog simply as a diary.

If people don't like it, they'll leave; because they trust him, they'll stay. He has decided to ignore stories about friends before and been taken to task for it, but that's his choice, he says.

For Dale it is not about 'breaking the lobby' or exposés: in fact, he says if he did it all again, he wouldn't even hint at scandal as much as he has done in the past.

So back to the brand and the key question: did Dale write his own Wikipedia entry?

"No, I did not. I have edited it from time to time, if someone says something really bad which is just not true," he says, adding that he has modified it no more than four or five times in the last three or four years.

"You can see who edits it," he reassures.

That's just as well: Bloggerheads and its followers would no doubt be on his case if he dared touch it more often.

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