THE fallout over the Damian McBride smear campaign continues apace – not least amongst the Labour Party’s online community.

They are anxious not to panic and throw the baby (new media) out with the dirty bathwater (McBride’s smears) by suddenly rejecting the web-based campaigning epitomised so eloquently by Barack Obama.

The disgraceful online activities of McBride, Gordon Brown’s closest adviser has of course left Labour extremely vulnerable.

So the Fabian Society have put together a comprehensive and commonsense defence of blogs and the blogosphere, assembling a variety of Labour-linked bloggers in its support.

They celebrate the internet as a force for good, empowering people who have been disenfranchised and alienated, giving a voice to those who have been silenced and cannot be heard.

They also put forward an extremely robust defence for using the internet to expose the wrong-doing, lies and hypocrisy of the powerful. We couldn’t say it better ourselves:

“We should challenge the ideas, claims and sometimes the misrepresentations of our opponents…this will become ever more important as the internet makes politics more transparent…we will point out a mismatch between professed principles and policies, or where the evidence does not back up what is claimed.”

Which also prompts us to forecast that a David Cameron Government will be very quickly greeted by a tidal wave of web-based opposition, disproving the notion that Labour supporters lag behind the Conservatives in the digital communication stakes.

The web is a powerful tool for democracy and empowerment – a welcome antidote to the ‘we know best’ approach of command and control public figures. Which is why we love it so much.

No longer can the rich and powerful hide their transgressions behind friendly newspaper barons. Every blogger is a potential Rupert Murdoch (but with considerably less money but hopefully more ethics, obviously).

From a PR point of view, with more than 70 per cent of the population now having access to the internet, new media offers fantastic new opportunities for almost anyone to get their message across. 

Instead of battling to persuade a jaded, overworked, world-weary journalist to cover your positive story – rather than the latest media obsession – the ‘web savvy’ can now reach their target audience directly. And unfiltered by anyone else. You are in complete control of your own message.

Of course, more work needs to be done on spreading the power of the internet to the hardest to reach groups. But great progress is being made.

And as we have seen repeatedly, if the message is good enough, the media will soon come running to you.

Fully realising the benefits of new media requires, of course, considerable technical expertise, coupled with great creative flair and commitment.

But as some of the best bloggers have demonstrated – it can be done.

You can support the Fabian Society statement, Why We Blog here.