Daily Telegraph blogging evening

Shane Richmond reports on an event held at the Telegraph building last night:

A lot of ground was covered by our guests, including the panel chaired by Iain Dale.

In their introductions several panellists focused on the perception that British political blogging lags behind America. Lloyd Shepherd suggested this might be because the BBC has a chilling effect on political debate in this country but others disagreed, suggesting that it will take an election before British political bloggers come into their own.

John Kampfner, editor of the New Statesman talked about the difficulty for traditional media of delivering online content that is fast and accessible but which also retains the rigour expected of long established brands.

Our own Christopher Hope backed this up, arguing that bloggers at traditional media organisations are at greater legal risk because they are more tempting targets for litigation. Not so, said Alex Hilton, of Recess Monkey and Labour Home, pointing out that he is being pursued for £10,000 by a member of Respect.

Alex was keen to argue against the blogosphere existing at all. "All we have in common is a content management system," he said.