Exactly!

Vodkagroom,

Your pre-nuptual bliss must have blinded you to Rosenberg's soft slam against bloggers.

"Bloggers can be journalists any time they practice journalism by actually trying to find out the truth about a story." That ain't a kind statement, if you read it slowly. It's awfully nice of him to bestow rights upon others, don't you think?

And then he goes on: "A journalist can be a blogger by installing some blogging software and beginning to post."

Pardon me while I gag and spew.

If mainstream journalists would report the news to people, instead of reporting the news as seen by their corporations.... oh, never mind.

Then there is this: "These words should be labels for activities, not badges of tribal fealty."

I need a drink....

Well, of course I would expect you, a Blogger, to believe that (sniffs disdainfully)...

I am joking, of course. BTW, how goes the pre-marital preps? Wishing you & the VodkaFiance all the best!

I dunno if I agree. I've seen journalists. I've read journalists. The first person that calls me a 'journalist' is getting punched in the mouth.

Ed is totally right. Journalists tell the "truth"? Yeah, right, pull my other one.

I guess that since I get most of my news lately from blogs, that makes bloggers de facto journalists. Sorry, that was a cheap shot. I just find more and better viewpoints on the blogs than I do on any newscast, newspaper, or radio report.

Best of luck with the upcoming nuptials! Having been married for (mumble mumble) years myself, I highly recommend it. (What's that? Yes, dear? Yes, I'm on the Internet again. I'm spending too much time on the computer again? Sorry, I'm getting off now.)

I didn't read the Rosenberg piece, but it sounds like an essay, not a piece of journalism. Does he count himself as a journalistic blogger, or a blogging journalist?

Just look at Slashdot, where the comments section routinely fact-checks the journalists. Without the comments section, it's not pretty; I doubt anyone would count /. as quality journalism. But if you're really looking for truth, you need the kind of peer review you get from the users, as well as a broad overview of what the real issues are in a story.

Any big newspaper could create that sort of system. Put the stories into Slash or Scoop, tell the reporters that they must participate in the discussions, manage it all with a quality community administrator who prevents spam and discourages trolls, and voila: the news-producing outlet is a web log and a tremendous source of information and truth. It even creates a natural, "sticky" internet audience with an interest in a cheap, low-bandwidth presentation and an awesome demographic for advertisers.

So why hasn't it happened yet?

A brilliant idea, Undertoad. I'd not heard of /. before so I went to check it out. Its design is way too busy a screen for these eyes of mine, but I get the jist.

Your idea offers the mainstream media an outlet for open, transparent, inter-active, honest, and accurate reporting of the things we think of as news. The trouble is, the mainstream media doesn't want that. What they want is money. The people and corporations who have annointed themselves as our "journalists" have become too bottom-lined and financially fat in their current structures to even contemplate giving up their good thing. They have corporate executives to think about, ya know.

Where the heck is VodkaGroom? Probably enjoying those strippers he and his best man interviewed for his bachelor party... hehehe.

Best wishes for your impending wedding. May the bride look glorious.