Blogging About Blogging XVII
Paul Boutin is brilliant. On Wednesday he threw down the gauntlet and ran the gantlet, posting an entry titled "Bloggers Vs. Journalists." It's the most insightful look at the recent skirmishes between traditional, print-based journalists and columnists and the upstart bloggers practicing "way new journalism." Many mainstream journalists think blogs are quaint -- echoes of the coverage zines received in the mid-'90s ("Oh, look! They're trying to make their own little magazine!"). And many bloggers -- myself included, given what I've posted in response to John Dvorak's recent piece in PC Magazine -- think that mainstream journos just don't get it.

Paul suggests that the two camps are closer than we think and that, like Maddie and David in Moonlighting, we're going to slap each other in the face only to collapse into each other's arms with a passionate embrace. Easily said by a writer who contributes to print publications and maintains his own infrequent blog (Paul) -- and easily digested by another writer who does the same (me). Over the course of the piece, Paul considers the slightly incestuous viral nature of blogging in terms of people responding to people's responses to people's opinions, the value of grassroots journalism on the Web, and the threat blogs pose to opinion columnists. Brilliant.

Thanks to Joe Sizzle for bringing this to my attention.