EU news and European blogging: Between domination and ignorance

I usually don’t write about Europe-related things that make it on
the first pages of newspapers or that get the attention of national
newscasters.

The attention of the public is regularly attracted to some specific
European topics - like the “new” Eastern Partnership this week -
because all major broadcasters and newspaper report about it.

On these days, you can find hundreds of commentators, media
“insiders”, interviewees, and the rest of the “racaille” (to use a
famous quote of Nicolas Sarkozy) jumping into the pool and then crying
for the attention of the public as compensation for their inability to
swim.

All you can do as a blogger with these topics is to commentate, drop a
little sarcastic remark into the rain forest of noise and hope that a
little Golden Lion Tamarin will find and play with it to forget for a
moment that it belongs to an endangered species.

There is no need to join the masses, to obey to cries of help of a
fast-moving industry. European blogging - which too often, even in my
case, becomes EU blogging - is of no added value when it follows the
rhythms set by others.

European blogging should try to set agendas off the beaten tracks.

We all have a limited capacity to digest new information, although my
generation is forcing up the amount of (diverse) information consumed,
although some media junkies like us are following several hundred
sources daily. This is why we make choices. The difference to the past
is that we expose ourselves to a larger amount of choices, but we
still just chose a limited number of news for more thorough scrutiny.

When I read big news, news that is repeated over a number of news
sources, I usually just read the headline, maybe one article, rarely
more. Why? Because I know that since it has made it into the sphere of
public attention, it will be repeated over and over again, so the
combination of different headlines I scan will give me the overview I
need.

The problem is that big news, especially big news on European topics,
is quickly dominating the agenda, it occults all “minor” stories. If
EU blogs join this media round dance, we will just reenforce the
present gap between a complex reality and the journalistic herd
instinct towards big stories.

If you read my blog, you will often find little quotes from documents that seem
unimportant, minor, hardly relevant. Boring administrative stuff, not
worth of attention. You can call it geekish, but the truth is that
unimportant administrative stuff of today quite often becomes big news
tomorrow.

Take, just as an example, my recent article on the restructuring of the European Parliament
secretariat. Sure, during this week, the attention on European
matters was on the last session of the European Parliament and on the
Eastern Partnership. But the little details quoted in my article -
e.g. the remark on information technologies - might influence the
work of the new European Parliament more than one or another MEP
elected into the next EP.

In fact, I don’t know.

But I can make guesses. As a blogger, I can take the risk to report
about details irrelevant by now, just based on the assumption that
they could have an effect in the future. I can allow myself to deviate
from the highway of big news and just walk right across the meadow.
Either I find a shorter track to the destination than those stuck in
the highway jams or at least I will be able to listen to the crickets
chirp and smell the perfume of fresh grass.

European blogging for me is a way to add little bits of cricket chirr
to the noise of the information highway. Most of the time, it is not
heard, and that’s perfectly okay. But sometimes, somebody like me will
come to my meadow and listen, just like I come and listen to the
chirps of others. And if the highway noise stops at night, and when
one day we all chirp together, the residents nearby won’t be able to
sleep.

What I want to say with this incredible chain of cliché metaphors,
forbidden in most journalistic texts and even hard to stand in a blog
article, is that we should take the risk to blog about little details
of European affairs. When I read other blogs, I appreciate the hint to
a little event that tells more about the state of the Union than a
pathetic comment to the diplomatically ironed conclusion of a European
Council.

The ignored detail is the true basis of democracy, of social life,
while the big news is just a momentary wave crest. Europe and the
European Union have too many ignored details, and we bloggers can give
meaning to them by creating relations, by showing how little events or
seemingly unimportant administrative documents relate to each other
and to the big news.

If European blogging becomes the related writing on ignored details,
it might be able to counterbalance the weight of a few major news
sources reporting about the big EU issues, mostly singular events
based on years of ignorance. We would be able to tell that we cared
about the details long before they reached the surface, and we would
be able to object to all those who will interpret these events as if
there was no past and no background.

But the best thing is: If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter.

The ignored stories we write and read can still be entertaining,
funny, shocking. European blogging and reading European blogs is first
and foremost a matter of fun, of interest. It doesn’t hurt if this is
not big news. For me it is enough to know that there are more things
going on beside the heads of state and government are meeting.

And in the end, reading ignored but interesting European blogs is
also a way to ignore dominant EU news. I use it as a silent personal
critique to those journalists and bloggers who follow the mainstream,
by not paying attention to them, by not devoting my precious time to
their uncreativeness, and instead offering it to a bunch of active
citizens investing their free time in caring for smaller and larger
details.

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