As if in answer to our own question "China Gateway - What Now? it seems that the council have postponed the rushed through meeting to deside the future of the project. so far it has been postponed until October.

Despite this a meeting has been called by Christine Tongue who, some of you may recall, is the film maker responsible for the documentary "Thanet Under Threat". The meeting, to raise awareness of the implications of the China Gateway project, will take place at at half past seven on Tuesday the 9th of September at the Red Hall in Grosvenor Road (Broadstairs).

If you talk to your average taxi driver you may find that eight out of ten cats have no idea what the China Gateway is and just as many don't actually care. Possibly this is because the average Thanet Cat (to keep abusing the same metaphor) has things like making ends meet to worry about. But just because no one is talking about it does not make it important.

Look back to the days of women's suffrage, the ending of serfdom (or slavery for that matter) or any other big change and the one thing that you will find is that the man on the street was not thinking about it. Not until those that realised the importance of the issue started to share their thoughts, feelings and ideas did public opinion pick up on it and potentially change.

Take, for want of a more recent example, the story of Simon Day (cllr Day, technically). Up until we at Thanet Star along with Thanet Strife and others (James Maskell in comments on thanetonline.blogspot.com, for example) started to talk about the situation no one even knew who Simon Day was.

Suddenly Labour councillor David Green is gleefully asking if Simon Day should resign as Your Thanet addresses the fact that he has set a bad example to other developers and as a member of the planning committee this is not a good thing at all.

I agree that we local pundits and grass roots reporters need to keep on top of what maters to people to stay relevant but we also have something of a duty to cast light on topics that might otherwise be slipped silently away in a dark corner. It is a fine balance to address topics people are talking about while still bringing something fresh to consider without being irrelevant on one side and unimaginatively dull on the other. For each of us that balance is different but we are marked in our success or failure in that balancing act by the results of our efforts.

For example I aim for a balance of Thanet News with a "new business" view and both a "web 2.0" and applied communication technology background. I would be a fool to attempt to do as Eastcliff Richard does with his heavy satire or Michael Child does with his far more experienced and matured old school business skills. All the same each of us has something to offer and it is something that no one else can offer.

Thanet can only be the richer for these offerings

So is The China Gateway and it's issues important even though the man on the street is not talking about it?

Some certainly think so. I happen to think they are right as tot he issues importance but I also can see that it is not the only topic in town. Awareness must be raised of each issue, certainly, but not at the expense of healthy variety.

Is it just "council bashing"? I don't know. For some maybe it is. Clearly enough people feel let down by the council to turn to blogging but it is in blogging that the writer is changed as much by his or her subject as the subject is changed by the writer. Take Birty Biggles as an example - when he started Thanet Strife it was only to poke fun at events going on in the blogging community at the time but very soon the reality of issues impacted his outlook and having found a voice he felt the need to use it.

Perhaps the most important thing that "blogging" (Grass Roots Journalism) can do for us in Thanet is to find people a voice and let that freedom change us for the better.

Further Reading

"Teaching Online Journalism" (mindymcadams.com) has an article called Get started with blogging, stress-free. Local pundit Michael Child has a guide to blogging while has a Thanet blogs sub search you can select to zoom in on blogging topics.

Mashable.com has a list of 40+ Free Blog Hosts just in case you don't fancy being a blogspot blogger. On that subject Pro Blogger has a guide to Choosing a Blog Platform