What is Vole Strangling?

I would like to credit the article, Do MSM Blogs Stack Up? by Justin of Chicken Yoghurt, for inspiring the name for this blog.

In his article he looks at bloggers from Mainstream Media and says

I have yet to see a newspaper blog where the writer has got down and dirty with the readers. This defeats the object of blogging to a large extent and is seen as poor etiquette by many non-newspaper bloggers

David Aaronovitch, for example, has recently scrambled aboard the blogwagon. Unfortunately he isn’t offering much more than the opportunity for readers to ruck among themselves over his newspaper columns. There’s no further input or acknowledgement from David himself. BBC political correspondent Nick Robinson’s blog does offer excellent exclusive content but, again, no banter in the comments.

Clearly most newspaper bloggers have other things to do on the paper, but a cynic might suggest that the illusion of interaction is merely a new-fangled way of attracting and keeping readers rather than a serious attempt at engaging them in a real debate. Many journalists have personal blogs and interact, sometimes vocifer ously, with their readers. Just not on the company dollar. When it comes to entering into a dialogue with the readership, it seems journalists must do it on their own time.

A good point.

But what happens when you can't tell your common-or-garden astro-turf from the real thing? What happens when there are little rodents running around your lawn and burrowing under the grass you have carefully seeded?

That's when you need a professional vole strangler.