New Section - Harry’s Place Arts
Dear Reader,
I will get to the “but” presently. Indulge me for a few paragraphs…
The growing popularity of blogging and so-called “citizen journalism” was once seen as a challenge to the traditional media. As news sources, blogs could sometimes dramatically scoop print and broadcast media, but I don’t think any serious media commentator honestly ever thought that this was a real threat to the professional news-gatherers. No, where newspapers, radio and television felt most threatened was in their role as opinion makers. Here bloggers came into their own as the forums best able to disseminate, dissect and discuss the news.
Soon the traditional media began to transform itself and to borrow the best aspects of blogging. Most now use their websites not only to publish their stories online, but to encourage users to “leave a comment” about the story. Some went further and launched blogs of their own, hiring professional writers and commentators to offer up daily opinion pieces for discussion. Even “citizen journalism” is now encouraged by the mainstream media. The ubiquity of camera-phones means that most news agencies ask members of the public to respond to any breaking story: “Were you there? Do you have photos? Video? What did you see?”
BUT… while newspapers may borrow the best ideas from blogs, it occurred to us at Harry’s Place that we might return the compliment.
That’s why we’re launching our ‘magazine’ section – Harry’s Place: Arts.
It will cover art, music, design, literature, photography, film, radio, television, and anything else that vaguely fits the bill.
Like the flagship Harry’s Place, there is no party line. Part of the fun is when the contributors don’t agree. We hope to retain the HP ethos of presenting considered but opinionated ideas in a colourful, engaging and readable way.
We have some distinct advantages. Unlike the mainstream media, we’re not time-sensitive, so if a writer discovers an album or a book from ten years ago and it excites them, they’ll review it! Chances are there are hundreds of other people who haven’t discovered it yet, or already love it and want to enthuse about it.
So, we offer you, the Harry’s Place reader, even more to read… and even more to argue about. We hope you’ll enjoy the new annex and the raft of new contributors drafted in to write for it.
And we hope it sets a new trend in blogging. We quite expect some of our blogging friends and rivals will follow suit. ;-)
To access the Harry’s Place ‘Arts’ pages, simply click on ARTS on the main menu. To return here, click on ‘Politics’
David T adds
Joining us on Harry’s Place Arts are a whole range of new authors. Some you’ll know, and others you won’t. We’ll possibly branch out from word and image into other ways of communicating ideas. Perhaps we’ll showcase videos. Possibly we’ll even have an “installation”. Who knows?
Although we started as a political blog, we’ve never restricted ourselves to political commentary. We hope this new section will give readers the opportunity to enjoy the range and depth of knowledge that Harry’s Place writers and commenters, at their best, manifest on these pages.
Comments
| 2 July 2008, 9:26 pm |
Hmmm… it all started to go wrong with The Guardian when they launched that G2 section. Even the International Herald Tribune now has a gross fashion mag every fourth or fifth saturday. Have you plans for that as well? And a Your Money section? A property supplement? Bad time for that. Is there a free DVD with this issue? Or at least a wall poster?
| 2 July 2008, 9:48 pm |
Brett
Dear Reader,
I will get to the “but” presently
Oh dear me! I know you are a gay and I have np with it (or any other lesbian//homosexual), just so you know. I cannot help chuckle though at your opening words though
| 2 July 2008, 10:01 pm |
Good luck. Having a picture of a vinyl LP playing as your first masthead is an encouraging start.
| 2 July 2008, 10:06 pm |
If spgb’s sterling humour here is any indication of the intellectual calibre of his party, the revolution is surely just around the corner comrades!
| 2 July 2008, 10:22 pm |
Mephisto
you are a paragon of virtue! (NOT…I was taking the piss out of a gay guy who is man enough to be kidded with)
Interesting that you equate me with everyone in the SPGB.
| 2 July 2008, 10:23 pm |
What has become of my dear Harry’s place….what happened to talking about football in a New Labour mockney accent?
| 2 July 2008, 10:31 pm |
“the traditional media began to transform ITSELF … Most now use THEIR websites …”: For shame, Sir, that you do not comprehend the difference, simple yet profound as it be, between Singular and Plural!
Or, in the vernacular, make your fucking mind(s) up.
| 2 July 2008, 11:15 pm |
Oh God, lefties talking about art. Shoot me now.
| 2 July 2008, 11:23 pm |
Whe I buy my weekday newspaper, the first thing I do is put supplements, extras and what other chatteriana I regret paying for into the nearest bin, and then get on with reading the news. As for weekend papers, I never touch them as the news is then just a thin sliver of a supplement. If HP goes the same way, it’s hard to reckon how often it will be worth switching on to read it.
| 2 July 2008, 11:35 pm |
Fortunately for you, we’ve put all that messy stuff on a different site, see?
So you don’t have to read it by accident.
| 2 July 2008, 11:47 pm |
I have no love for the Nazi’s, or thier modern equivalent the Nutzies.
BUT, and a very big BUT, I have 100% sympathy for Goerings comment
“Every time I hear the word ‘culture’ I reach for my revolver !”
GW
Let the middle class parasites pay for their own entertainment !
| 3 July 2008, 12:37 am |
Good luck with the new site. Hope it goes well. What’s the value being put on HP these days by the private equity teams?
| 3 July 2008, 1:50 am |
This is excellent news. Congratulations!
| 3 July 2008, 1:54 am |
Personally I think it’s a shame to hive things off here and there. Especially now we have tagging. Everything’s political once you’ve started blogging about it, don’t you reckon?
Will there be any women? For some time I assumed that Brownie was a young woman. All the brownies I ever knew were. Then somebody referred to him as a he and I slumped back to the role-modellessness of before.
Yes, it matters. Even if I couldn’t tell the difference from the way he wrote.
| 3 July 2008, 3:44 am |
Talking about magazines, dear Brett, when is the next issue of GHQ (Gay Humanist Quartely) going to come out - afterall it seems to be getting on for almost nine months since the last one!
| 3 July 2008, 6:52 am |
“Talking about magazines, dear Brett, when is the next issue of GHQ (Gay Humanist Quartely) going to come out - afterall it seems to be getting on for almost nine months since the last one!”
I don’t know. I quit as editor and am no longer involved.
| 3 July 2008, 8:08 am |
Does the high praise for Nando’s dead chickens go in the Arts section, or what about a Food section?
| 3 July 2008, 9:18 am |
Good luck with the new arts section, though I may be too much of a palestine to appreciate it!
Then again; I may send in the odd book review. But only factual stuff you understand, I’m way too much of an oik for literary fiction, I just can’t muster the interest. If there’s not at least a passing chance of the likes of Anne Hathaway getting her boobs out, there really doesn’t seem much point.
| 3 July 2008, 10:14 am |
Nick - do you mean philistine?
| 3 July 2008, 10:28 am |
Naah - most definitely palestine, a far more self affirming term…
| 3 July 2008, 11:01 am |
Hopefully there’ll also be some coverage of video games - and if you don’t think video games can be art (or indeed be political), then check out Bioshock:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioshock
http://screenshots.teamxbox.com/gallery/1457/BioShock/p1/
P.
P.
| 3 July 2008, 12:13 pm |
At last! I can stop buying the saturday Guardian to only read the mgazine on Sunday. Oh wait a sec, I do still need The Guide - or is HP going to have a TV section as well?
p.s. I’ve become morbidly addicted to Criminal Justice this week ~ not least because Ben Wishaw gets (made to take) his kit off at least once very episode).
| 3 July 2008, 4:00 pm |
“What next? Ken Roach gets a spot here?”
Is this a reference to Bill Roach/Ken Barlow off Coronation Street?
| 3 July 2008, 4:13 pm |
Ken Roach is obviously the fishy big brother of Ken Loach:
| 3 July 2008, 4:22 pm |
Benjamin, send in your CV like the rest of us.
Greg: Shoot me now.
Ooh! Performance art!
| 3 July 2008, 6:05 pm |
gizza job, I can do that.
| 3 July 2008, 7:01 pm |
I’m not sure that this new section is the way forward. I mean most of the opinions expressed on this website come straight out of the right wing tabloids, so maybe a sports section or pictures of topless women would be more appropriate
| 3 July 2008, 7:17 pm |
Tagnuzlsx, shouldn’t you be posting lies about Graham and John P? You know, like the proven liar everyone knows you are, you liar.
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