“Weblogs aren’t journalism. Period.”

Amen, Derek. I’m puzzled at how the mainstream media are treating blogs as some sort of revolutionary new “grassroots journalism,” when most blogs are about as related to professional journalism as poetry is related to biomolecular chemistry — it isn’t. Sure, there are news blogs and war blogs and other such issues-oriented blogs, but the blogging “revolution” is more about individual journaling than it is about journalism. The world of personal publishing does not position itself as an authoritative or intentionally pervasive source of news or commentary; it just exists as it is, in many forms: conversations, diaries, photo albums, sketchpads, scrapbooks…