The so-called “citizen journalists” will never offer a real replacement to newspapers and television news, he told Cheltenham Literature Festival.
He said: “Most citizen journalism strikes me as nothing to do with journalism at all.
“A lot of bloggers seem to be socially inadequate, pimpled, single, slightly seedy, bald, cauliflower-nosed, young men sitting in their mother’s basements and ranting. They are very angry people.
“OK – the country is full of very angry people. Many of us are angry people at times. Some of us are angry and drunk. But the so-called citizen journalism is the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night.
“It is fantastic at times but it is not going to replace journalism.”
Responding to a question from his audience at Cheltenham Town Hall he added: “Most of the blogging is too angry and too abusive. It is vituperative.
“Terrible things are said on line because they are anonymous. People say things on line that they wouldn’t dream of saying in person.”
Marr was giving a talk about how modern technology is rapidly changing the way people receive news and current affairs information.
He said change is happening frighteningly quickly with newspaper sales slumping as people turn to the internet.
It was a sad fact that the media would be employing fewer journalists as sales of hard copies declined, he said. But he believed that we are in a transitional phase and that in future people will be willing to pay for online news and information in the way that they now do for newspapers and magazines.
“I am spending a lot of money on my iTunes account, I am already buying journalism on line, I am buying information on line, I am buying books on line,” he said.
“Even if you are not going it, your children and your grandchildren will be doing it.”
Boadicea's Chariot 
“OK – the country is full of very angry people…..”
He’s not wrong there, and some of us a re pretty angry at people like Marr, smug left wing metropolitan creep.
On one hand marr says that bloggers will never replace journo’s and then he offers the demise of journo’s as being down to bloggers. Anyone would think the tit had said it just to be controversial and get his remark noticed, as if.
Just as Miss Gordon fulfils the DT’s need for a dumb blonde, Mr Marr is their brainless twat.
PS Backside says of course he’s bloody angry and why not? 😦
Hee Hee Hugh,
Would that be a pimply backside? 🙂
The only difference between bloggers and journalists is that the latter get paid for it and that the former could do the job just as well, if not better.
OZ
Janus, Andrew Marr works for the BBC, not the Daily Telegraph. The DT was commenting on his speech. He was Editor of The Independent at one time. He admits to having been a “Raving Leftie” during his university years, but has been described in his journalism, as objective, by Andrew Neil, who is staunchly Conservative. However Marr’s wife, Jackie Ashley, daughter of a Labour Peer, works for the Guardian. Having seen his questioning of Gordon Brown, I would have described him as equally probing, rather than sympathetic to either cause. Undoubtedly he was rattling the cage over this particular issue, and I was amused to read Shane Richmond’s response in defence of the blogging classes…
CWJ – When Andrew Marr was first appointed there were comments in the press about his ‘leftie’ leanings. However, I have to say that I too have found him quite objective in his journalism since.
OZ
I like him, akershally.
He does start the week on R4. Quick mind.
Isn’t ‘vituperative’ a wonserful word. I shall try to use it withint the next 24 hours.
Now, about the ‘typical blogger’ – is there such a thing?
When I glance at the type of blogging that my sons look at it is an entirely different kettle of herrings from what goes on here, for example.
“Wonderful”
Certainly I was conscious of “the spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night” at “the other place” and I would say he was well off the mark describing them as young men sitting in their mother’s basements – more likely curmudgeonly old codgers obsessed with race and religions!
One of the better things about the USA, getting away from Marr on TV!
Not that one does not have a different set of complete arseholes……….
Akershally…. from the little I’ve seen of Marr I like him, too… 🙂
As for ‘typical’ bloggers? No such thing.
If newspaper sales are declining so is the standard of journalism. It’s all geared to be fear-mongering and sensational.
CWJ, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! 😦