Now that Channel 9 is run by beancounters, they’re cutting costs and removing everything which made it a great TV network. It’s not something to be proud of. It’s embarrassing. The only time I watch Channel 9 now is when it’s on the big screen in a pub.

But…

To ask whether “a good blogger”, singular, can replace a 2-hour flagship current affairs program is the daftest question I’ve seen in a very long time. Of course they can’t, no more than a solo folk singer can replace Opera Australia. They’re different things.

To ask whether “blogs even have a real and serious role to play in truly in-depth political analysis” is to ignore the obvious fact that the answer is already yes. Ask Dan Rather about the Killian documents.

To whinge that “a lot of what’s written out there by these wanna-be political commentator blogs are just plain dumb” is to ignore two obvious facts: (1) a lot of what’s written anywhere is dumb, but that doesn’t invalidate the entire medium; and (2) there is good material out there, but every time someone points it out to you, you skip over that and ask again. Troll.

You’re becoming tedious, skeptical. You’re doing exactly what caused me to write my original rant: comparing the idealised best of journalism (which rarely exists) with your own pre-conceived idea of blogging, based on the worst that medium has to offer. Quite frankly, that only shows your ignorance of what’s actually happening around you.

Jeff Jarvis is right. If you’re still back there in the past, trying to push those old arguments, then you’re part of the problem. It’s time to move on. As one of Jarvis’ commenters said, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”

As for terminology, I think the word “journalist” is an insult. Public confidence in journalism as a profession was hovering around the 13% mark the last time I looked. Bloggers are not “journalists”. They’re something vastly better than that.

If that blogger exists out there today, show him to me! SHOW HIM TO ME!!

Fact is, a lot of what’s written out there by these wanna-be political commentator blogs are just plain dumb. In fact, often they say nothing at all. And when they’ve got nothing to say, they’ll put up a dumb post like “Open Thread”. And guess what? That one post gets several hundred comments! WTF is that?

As far as I’m concerned, that just kinda proves how dumb people have become thanks to the internet. Here’s something worth reading: http://tinyurl.com/468zuz

@Stephen Stockwell: Well how about this? A friend comes up and says, “Hey Stephen, have you heard the news? Graham is getting married!” That is news to you because Graham’s a friend and you hadn’t heard it before.

I’m now starting to think that this idea of news only being about “important people” happened when news started to be transmitted by big, industrial-scale organisations. The subject of the news had to be of relevance to to sufficient people to justify the deployment of industrial-scale newsmaking.

So, there’s a strike by coal miners in South Africa. It’s big — but only because it affects a lot of people in South Africa or those with shares in the mining company. Does it affect me? No. So really, it’s not news to me. I’d much rather know about the truck crash blocking the end of my street — no-one hurt, no great damage either, but that really will screw up my day.

And as for the comment about putting in your blog information about your wedding is not “news” it would be if you were a public figure! Even though you are not a public figures, it is at least “Local news” to your friends and family!

Webster dictionary says journalism is “writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation”

Rather than giving a name and status to blogging, lets focus on removing the undeserved “journalism” tag from 90% for the shite that gets pumped out by media organisations.

“Recreational” implies it’s for the fun of it, whereas I think citizen journalism reflects the core human need to communicate and some people take it very seriously indeed.

“Recreational journalism” also sounds like a good puff of what the junior graphic artist keep stashed at the back of his desk drawer…

Neerav Bhatt: You’re right, to use one word “blog” to describe The Huffington Post, your own work, mine and a random cat-fancier from Arkansas isn’t helpful.

To people in the IT/media industry I say “Professional Blogger” — and they say wow that’s great

If people still don’t understand, I say imagine Fairfax Digital but scaled down a heck of a lot and run by 1 person who does all the work: writing, invoicing, selling ad space etc.

I don’t think one label works across the whole population

Given the wiki definition of journalism and the equivalent good/bad quality, trustworthy/untrustworthy source continua in all kinds of media, the difference is the money, surely?

OK, so it’s not actually recreation for a lot of bloggers, but I like the implied flip of the bird at status conscious paid journalists.