To blog or not to blog...

For being a blogger myself, I read very few other blogs, partly because whenever I do I feel like stop blogging myself. Either I find other people’s blogs so much better than my own, which makes me feel inferior and wonder why I am doing this; or they are so pretentious they just make me tired; or I find the other blogs so extremely bad and nerdy that I start to wonder if mine is too. Nevertheless, I will keep doing it for a while still.

However, the last couple of days, there has been a massive media debate about the blog of Sweden’s minister for foreign affairs, Carl Bildt. He has been criticized for using his blog to vent personal opinions on foreign policy and other issues in a way that would not be suitable for a person in his position and also for using it for spreading information without having to answer to the critical questions of journalists. Therefore I had to read his blog today and some of the comments there. I must say, I don’t understand what the fuss is about. Isn’t blogging just about giving a personal view on things? And I am quite sure he is smart enough not to reveal any state secrets on his blog. And isn’t a blog a perfect way to communicate directly to those interested, without the filter of not always very objective and unbiased journalists? Because I can not imagine that he would stop talking to journalists completely.

With all respect for some journalists, I have to say that many journalists and media in general have lost credibility. They seem to see themselves as a purpose of it’s own, never to be questioned themselves. Questioning a journalist sees to be the worst thing you can do sometime.

Without any other comparison between my blog and Carl Bildt’s blog, I see we have one thing in common; he started writing in English but has shifted to Swedish after some consideration. I have been thinking about that too, as I feel most of the readers understand Swedish and above all, I think the quality would increase if I did. But at the same time, I need the practise and I know some non-Swedish-speaking people read it every now and then and those are the one I speak to most seldom anyway, so I will continue…