Wordblog

Things happen but it is difficult to see how the Telegraph came to post a blog story on the levels of postal voting in the Ealing Southall by-election the day before polling.

As any journalist who has spent a few hours panic revising before a law exam knows electoral law is tough on publishing voting information  before the poll closes. No wonder Inspector Plod is visiting the Victoria newsroom.

It is not as though the author of the post on the Little and Large blog was a youngster on work experience. The author, Jonathan Isaby has "has worked around Westminster for eight years. He is deputy editor of the Spy column and has a talent for mimicry".

His post was pulled but a screen grab, with some figures obscured, is at Political Penguin.

This incident suggests the normal editorial controls, which save us from out most of our mistakes when working for newspapers, were not in place. Of course, one of the advantages of blogging is that it allows quicker publication but that has dangers.

The individual blogger has no such journalistic process and we take the risk ourselves. When a blog is part of a newspaper site it is different: the editor has responsibility. This is an issue which needs much more attention as blogs are being increasingly seen as a way of by-passing normal editorial mediation to get stories to the readers more quickly.