So I thought it was about time I did something about it and voila! New layout! With the easy-click Blogspot, it really is as easy as that.
As I clean out my own blog trash, I'd like to send out some cudos and a warm hug to Erica Bartle over there at Girl With A Satchel. Having been through a particularly tough week in the eyes of the media, she too, has decided to have a bit of a makeover and initiate some changes at Girl With A Satchel. It takes guts to admit to yourself that you've made mistakes, let alone admit them to your peers and the public. And while I love every inch of Girl With A Satchel (after all, it was what inspired me to start my own blog), I heartily commend Erica for the changes she is making and her strength in the firing line of the often cruel and quick-to-judge media.
Being a writer brings with it certain responsibilities, responsibilities I am very wary and respectful of when I am writing for print publication. I double check my facts, I read over every line and assess their different interpretations. I make sure the copy is bullet-proof before I file, because once it's printed, it can't be un-printed.
Sure, statements can be retracted and apologies made, but there will always be copies of your words, whether on hard paper or simply ringing in the readers' ears. People think that the news grows old, that it becomes replaced, but the news is like an elephant - it never forgets. Just like Julia Roberts explains in Notting Hill, "Newspapers are forever" - the day may end, the newspapers may get thrown away and the stories may go out of date, but they can be referred to and brought back to the forfront at any time. Newspapers are forever in filing.
And it's easy to forget that blogs work the same way and therefore deserve the same respect and wariness. Like Erica explains in her post, blogs are, by their vary nature, biased. But while we can write whatever we like with as much opinion, gusto and freedom as we care to divulge, we must still take care and responsibility for what we are posting, just like we would when submitting for print publication.
I faced this very dilemma last week when writing Dear Lara Bingle. While The KH Chronicles does not operate on nearly as high a visitor turnover as Girl With A Satchel does - in fact many of my readers are my friends and family and are therefore more forgiving - I am still responsibile for what I post here. While the way I write and what I write about is biased, cynical, sarcastic, ironic and often subtly offensive, that doesn't prevent me from suffering the same consequences as what I would if this style of my writing was published in a larger forum. After writing Dear Lara Bingle, I questioned whether it was suitable to post (especially given the current defamation issue between Lara Bingle and Fevola.) After some careful wording, I decided to go ahead and post, crossing my fingers that the relatively unknown KH Chronicles would not suddenly find itself in the middle of a media hail storm.
We are all entitled to our own opinion and while we verbally share these with freedown between each other, it does become a completely different story when they are written down and shared in a public arena. Such is the life of a writer. Sure, you can giggle or commed the writers who bravely share their tactless opinions each week in their newspaper columns, but guaranteed, their emails and pigeon holes are flooded daily with abusive letters and detailed complaints at the comments, no matter how hilarious, they have publically made.
So dear readers, I encourage you to support the writers you love to read.They go out on dangerous limbs to bring you content which can be interpreted in a million different ways and can leave them dangerously open to being shot down. However, while our opinion can fast be our undoing, it is what makes us unique and to lose it, would be to become one step closer to living like the machines.
Ciao for now. xo
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