Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Sorry Alan, the last two posts were in reply to questions posed by Gareth Eastwood. Must have been force of habit.

Cheers

Hi Margo.  I am a bit confused about Facebook as well but would be happy to provide my take on it.  My years at eBay gave me some insight into that global phenomenon. The power of eBay is in the eBay community and the open feedback on each and every transaction.  That has never happened in business before.

Facebook has me curious.  I suspect I don't fit its core demographic but there's no doubt it's spreading like wildfire.

On an unrelated matter, Rudd is using the phrase "when it comes to" on Sunday.  There has never been a man so robotic, repetitive and rehearsed in language. Oh and he just said "working families"

Oh for f's sake........... he just did the five times interest rate gesture.

Time to turn off the TV and go out into this lovely day. The good thing is the Australian people are switched off also.  Maybe on 24 November when they are forced to switch on, we may find a few surprises.

Margo: I think you're right there, David. Howard's upcoming $10 billion for roads in problem seats is breathtaking. I only wish most was for rail and other public transport. Climate change? It's in its own little box still. How sad. And how sad that the media is not asking the questions connecting the dots here.

Hi Margo, speaking as a pioneer on the applications of the web technology in Australian business (please allow me to crow a little bit), I must say that I don't get it also with Facebook.

I cannot  see any technical innovation behind this application and cannot see any innovative business model behind it. It has been valued at about US$15billion, yes $15billion. How it is going to make money? Advertising? Pigs will fly. So like you, I also don't get it.

Margo: Its networking vibe is incredible, but I'm not sure how to maximise it.

My chapter the low point in the book? That thought continues to haunt me this balmy November night in Australia's only global city.

The MySpace comment? I didn't even notice it but I would not disagree that it is at least interesting. Murdoch's admission that he got the internet wrong was somewhat of a watershed. Like all things related to the internet I am not sure where this will end up.

As an aside, I am secretly rooting for Facebook. I don't like MySpace. Worth noting though is that Webdiary was the first of its kind. I think a book should be written about the history of Webdiary. The only problem with that one is I would likely be in it. All the buzz is about social networking. Webdiary certainly has a social networking dimension.

Margo: Hi David. I've got a Facebook, but am confused about what it's about and its capabilities. Care to do a big picture take? Re a Webdiary book, maybe I'll have a go one day.  

Margo, you've been an inspiration, and influence, perhaps even a tyrant over my thoughts for many years now. I made a decision this year that I would become an immigration lawyer and work to assist refugees because of the commitment you and Marilyn Shepherd have showed to the issue. That is the only gift I have to offer, and, the only gift I will offer.

A duty to explain, not a choice or desire to. Failure because you did what you thought was right, to the best of your ability. No, beyond your ability. And all the dead Iraqis you couldn't save. What is a career, an illness, a mistake, in the face of that?

No, I won't disturb that line anymore.

Oh yes, namby-pamby media diversity. I remember being open-minded about the cross-media changes and leaning towards supporting them. This semester I thought more deeply about the issue in the context of my degree and am probably much closer to Kingston in my views, than when she first published some of my work on the issue. Nevertheless when I re-read the political bullying that Kingston undertook with Senators on this issue, and the complete disregard she had for anyone with an opposing view, it made me wonder: how I am supposed to feel?

How is anyone that Kingston has attacked supposed to feel? The question isn't asked in the book and no provision is made for them. How is Fairfax supposed to feel? How is the Zionist lobby supposed to feel? Imre Saluzinsky? Tim Blair and all the people who saw her as a political foe? All the people who voted for the Liberal party? All that made a negative comment (or two)? Are we all to feel complicity in her downfall but not her resurrection? She says she has no regrets, but are we to feel regret? Guilt? Remorse?

These are not events I merely read about, many of them I participated in, as did a great many other people, on the wrong side of Kingston's health and well-being. Are we to apologise? To convert?

Margo: I have no idea what you're talking about, Solomon. You can feel what you like. I deny bullying anyone on cross media. I've always run criticism of me and my views on Webdiary, and always will. I'll always admit when I get something wrong, and I'm open to changing my mind on an issue. I don't attack the looks or lifestyle of other people - ie I don't hit below the belt. Unlike the critics of mine you mention. I won't comment on anything else you write on this thread - we're clearly not on the same wavelength, as is so often the case.

David, oh and I didn't expect the Oz to publish it, but I did expect (as a citizen) that they would cover it in some form. Its part of the election and it has a right to be there. There was some decent coverage of the first book but I think now its just in the "too hard" basket. What did we get? "Maxine McKew not happy with NHJ campaign" from Imre and what else?

Off the Rails was beautifully written and it recorded an important period of Australian history. I mention it often, but you are the only one that has ever responded that they've read it. I don't think very many Webdiarists have read it, which to me is a mark of their support being political. In fact, I don't see any point responding to anyone here who hasn't read it: it's essential reading in understanding the whole Margo Kingston phenomenon.

The high point of the book was when Margo Kingston noted that Rupert Murdoch had bought MySpace.

Margo, I withdraw and apologise. I can't find any evidence to substantiate it. It exists there in my memory but I can't find it in reality, and, it isn't for want of looking. This bothers me a lot.

Bill, they are not pretty in an America's Top Model sense, but yes, in a way they are beautiful - gentle, sweet, an inspiration to teach. I sat in classes with them as a child. No, I didn't make that story up. Occasionally such horrid incidents occurred in Western Sydney, I wouldn't say caused by social dysfunction - that is an excuse - but a manifestation of it.

Kingston writes in a highly personalised way. The key chapter - as David says - is the opening where she recounts the darker periods, and, I feel, lays blame externally. It's an aspect worth dealing with. My analysis isn't half-baked but rather evolved from a long observation of her work and what has been written about her.

What of the next election if Howard wins? Is her brother to be put on "suicide watch? The emotional issues are there in the opening, raised by her, and I think it ought to be dealt with.

David, I wouldn't assume that you would give me "bad marks" for those comments: I made them in the knowledge that you are not petty in that way. I read the opening chapter more than once and found it bitter about the past, but hopeful about the present.

The bitterness that I sense revolved around the loss of her career. She goes in to detail about why Fairfax was wrong and why she was good for the paper and, by implication, why they were wrong to retrench and control her output.

I recall Margo once told me not to "provoke" her in to recounting history about the break from Fairfax. There was a time when the behind-the-scenes stuff interested me and I would press for information, but not at the time she said this, which was much later. Then she goes and recounts the details of the incident in a book, where it would get the most publicity. I thought she would do this.

Its all there, black and white, as if to say: I was right, Fairfax was wrong, and though I'm happy now, I've been through hell and its not my fault.

Solomon, what sort of review is it where you make up an incident that never happened and then miss a key statement in the first chapter?  Given that the first chapter was the most significant new part of the updated book, it sounds as though you did not read it very well.

I am giving you bad marks for this review and not just because you describe my chapter as the low point of the book.  No wonder the Australian didn't publish your review.  It's not very good, is it?

In a way I feel responsible for one of the mock sites. I had made a comment asking for clarification about Kingston's offer to employ someone "in exchange" for a certain sum. For some reason I nurtured the absurd interpretation that she was offering a spot on Webdiary in exchange for a donation, convincing at least one individual of this on Tim Blair's blog of this. Often I seem to have this kind of miscommunication with her. Someone made a mock site which used the incident to attack her professionalism.

I don't think I deliberately courted the Goblin King Tim Blair and his minions, but I am certainly courting them now.

At worst, what is there to fear from all of this? I don't believe that Margo Kingston looks like a down syndrome woman (certainly she looks better than John and Janette, the twin Toadwarts), but so what if she did? Down Syndrome people exist; My mother used to teach a class of them. They are not the prettiest people in the world but that is life. They deal with it, so can anyone else.

When I was in High School I remember once a young couple had some verbal exchange with a down syndrome woman, over I don't know what. When she was off the bus, the male grabbed her by the back of the head and bashed it repeatedly in to a metal pole. Some people in this world are just vicious.

Solomon, so my chapter was the book's low point and you are dumfounded as to why it wasn't cut?

My call for equal access to education, the foundation of an opportunity based society, seems reasonable to me.  So too did my calls for media diversity and all the rest of it.  I thought it was the sort of namby pamby stuff that would be right up your alley.  Clearly not.

Your harsh commentary has left me dumfounded.  I've moved from hurt to dumfounded. 

If my chapter was the low point of the book what was the high point?

David, I thought your chapter was the book's low point and was dumbfounded as to why it wasn't cut. What was with all that Whitlamesque talk about free university education? It had nothing to do with anything. The qualified introduction in this version just begged a lot of questions. I get it, but how many people will?

I thought the second book flowed quite a lot better than the first book. I tried in the past to read the first edition more than once, especially during the lulls when Kingston wasn't writing, but could never force myself through it. This time I found it difficult but not impossible. I had no such problem with Off the Rails which sucked me in from the very start.

I think the meeting was a Fairfax meeting. I am struggling to find the source article in Proquest, where I first read it, which makes me think I have mangled the detail somehow. Perhaps the subject wasn't cross-media, though that is as I remember it. I read it and realised that the criticism ignored any substantive point Margo may have made and instead tried to make out that she had committed a faux pas. This mirrors much of the online criticism, which tries to push her buttons. I think in being conscious of such a weakness it disappears. It was some time ago: I had gone specifically looking for archival material of early Kingston, and found a beautiful portrait of her written by Gabrielle Chan.

Though I can't find the specific event there is plenty of criticism levelled at Kingston for her extreme language, for example, for claiming (apparently) that the Government was killing Indigenous people through building a nuclear reactor, or, for declaring that Australia is in a "pre-fascist" state. This is better than the kind of stuff she copped through the independent online world but it is still highly opportunist and doesn't really give a balanced picture of her.

Angela, I was in a bad mood after reading the book. I wrote 3000 words of criticism and then cut it down to just over 700. It took a lot out of me: I was exhausted. I kept listening to an Oasis song that starts off: Maybe I don't really wanna know, how your garden grows..

I believe in Kingston as a writer and first came to her work through Off the Rails, which I once compared to the work of Capote. I thought NHJ showed signs of physical and mental deterioration and failed to justice to her as a writer. I felt distinctly uncomfortable reading it, especially in the portions about the Iraq war protests and the idealism about Webdiary which I knew would draw criticism from "digital natives" or whatever they are called. There was too much gushing about what is really only an online discussion board, and the wave was going to crash at some time. At the time I tried very hard to put a positive spin on it and try and make what I thought was impulsiveness appear like deliberate choices.

Think of the debate she had with Imre Salusinzky, recorded in both books. In it she makes a powerful speech about transcending the left-right dichotomy and then describes falling in to tears afterwards when he makes a usual left-bashing speech. This is unfair: you can't expect someone to divert from a prepared speech, especially when you have a history of being a hard-edged critic, in response to a speech which nobody could have expected you to make. She set herself up for a disappointment. She records Imre as saying that the left don't do any help to their cause by calling detention centres "Gulags", which was a true, if narrow, response to the refugee question.

I didn't expect anything more from this new book but I don't think it should have been published in the form that it was. I care about publishing and think that this kind of disposable work with such a short shelf life does damage to the publishing industry. It is not Kingston's fault - she did the best she could - but I don't think she served her readers well by this effort. I would have said no.

One comment that I cut out was that anyone who feels cheated by this book has not been ripped off, they simply haven't been paying attention. David Booth's comment about the lack of new material came back to me and I posted this on the thread where this comment was made, and Alan Curran stating that it was "garbage". This is what I meant with my opening remark: I am not sure I wanted to give this the prominence of a "thread", but I suppose I ought be held accountable for my opinions.

I expected negative reactions to the book and when I first wrote this thought I might be able to pre-empt them with a hard but not entirely negative review. The opening to me read like an accusation. I did note the improvement in mood, which I predicted, but didn't get much of a sense that she was taking responsibility for her own decisions, which is not a positive step. To me it read like a series of accusations. I made a deliberate effort to try and read the book from the perspective of her critics, probably because I was one of those critics.

Margo, a Phoenix implies first a death. You write: "I thought my life was over." and make a specific point about the impact of negative comments on your state of mind. Other portions of the book detail your hard-edged lobbying of Senators and other politicians on political issues, and it was good to be reminded of all of that.There is this mix of fragility and ruthlessness which is very human and very inconsistent, and someone should call you out on it.

I noted the improvement in mood, predicted it, and was relieved and pleased by it. Nevertheless you just wrote a book called Still not HAPPY John so what business do you have being happy?

Solomon, I note with some personal hurt that you do not mention my chapter. Why are you so cruel?  I actually thought it was a great book.  Clearly I did not agree with all that was said but I really liked how it flowed.  It was written in a very engaging style and brought together some interesting people.  It wasn't the usual old hacks with the same old predictable commentary.  I mean thank God there was no chapter by leftie social researcher, Hugh Mackay.  Then it would have been just more leftie pulp fiction.  Instead we had lightening rod Margo surrounded by her boy fan club!  That made the book sparkle!

Do you know what I mean about the flow?  It was terrific. Margo set it out so well even by starting with the Bush barbie at the Lodge.

I always remember the day I read the original Not Happy, John!   Penguin had had kindly sent it to my office in Switzerland.  One Sunday I set out from Bern with a day card on the Swiss railway system (first class of course).  As soaring alps passed by and opened up into dramatic lake vistas, I would eagerly turn each page of NHJ.  That is the way I like to read a book.  From cover to cover without putting it down.  NHJ is a real page turner.  I arrived home that evening thinking it was an important book.

I rubbished it when I first heard of it.  I rubbished it in the middle of the project and I've rubbished it since.  It remains an important book, though, and one that continues to tickle my fancy.

This is the last time John Howard will face the Australian people.  The book is about to close on John Howard.  It would have been remiss of Margo and Penguin not to update it at this time.

I think your review misses some important points but I'm too lazy to point them out.  Sorry, it's Saturday afternoon and I am tired after an interesting evening last night.

Crikey Solomon, is that what your reviews are like? Perhaps the editor is worried that even a reply may be libellous. Phewww. Singed eyeballs.

Obviously one needs a skin like a DU-plated crocodile to publish, wow.

And I thought Webdiary replies were scary. Especially when people are linked to RWDB.

I like having books like Margo’s on my shelf to keep for the future view of real history, ready to hide when the burning starts. Also it is a pretty blue. It stands next to the Pilger collection, another keeper of the history. And Warrne Reed. Nice guy. And next to the Alan Jones book, which just probably gets in the way of his hopes for rugby coaching. Bit about John, too. Nice books that balance the vacuous Vogues. Actually, they're Mum's in an attempt to get us to "up" the disaster zone we call our home to her North Shoooore standards.

:)

What does reading about our PM do? Having it all laid out, without the protective spin of his freeing-up-the-press-market mates? Well, I guess John Howard is the kind of guy that makes you like John Hewson for confessing the familiar term amongst the Liberals for their leader ... "Rodent". ... Love Mr Hewson now.

The really hard part now is that a good friend is the local Liberal Candidate. Looks like shall have to pamphleteer for the Libs lower house (need a swing here of about 180%) and Greens upper house (ah, more practical).

And Solomon, keep on reviewing. I never get to read reviews like that normally; it is a blast of fresh air. But honestly, were you in a bad mood that day? Put the knife dooownnn.

Cheers

PS it is on my Christmas list for my right wing family of Rodent huggers.

Solomon, I'm not bitter any more. It's a shame you didn't pick that up in the new Intro - my fault I'm sure.

I'm happy to be in the thick of the grassroots - it's new, exciting, and hopeful. And forced rest and reflection have deepened my life - no regrets, now.

I didn't agree to do the update for political advantage, but because I knew that only such a horrible deadline would break my writer's block, and I thought I was just about ready to test out my new life balance. . 

And I don't remember  'gate-crashing an executive meeting on cross-media ownership'. Please explain!