Rebecca Blood wrote in her “The Weblog Handbook” , page 19: “weblogs and journalisms are simply different things. What weblogs do is impossible for traditional journalism to reproduce, and what journalism does is impractical to do with a weblog.”

“To my mind, news reporting consists of interviewing eyewitnesses and experts, checking facts, writing a original representation of the subject, and editorial review: the reporter researches and writes a story, and his editor ensures that it meets her requirements. Each step is designed to produce a consistant product that is informed by the news agency’s standards. Weblogs do none of these things. ”

ennn… “bloggers have no gatekeepers. “but you can have one. ” they are generally produced in the maintainer’s spare time. “ this does not have to be the case. “Weblogs can perform a valuable function as critical disseminators of pertinent information. ….Webloggers come from all backgrounds and often provide their readers with highly informed explanations and analysis of news stories that are related to their fields of expertise. ” True. And?

What about collaborative sites? Are Slashdot, Kuro5hin and MetaFilter examples of peer-to-peer journalism? These sites,” at their best, discussions on these sites vastly clarify the linked articles by offering pointers to additional online material and expert information and analysis by qualified members.”

According to Rebecca: “these sites are fascinating examples of information sharing, analysis, and dissemination, and I believe that they may represent a genuinely new way for news to be collected, analyzed, and distributed. It is important to note, however, that the collaborative community structure of these sites is the key to this phenomenon; the weblog format has nothing to do with it. “ Are you sure of this? The structure of these sites, including rules certainly has something to do with the dynamics of the community, has it not?

“The weblogs strength is fundamentally tied to its position outside of mainstream media: observing, commenting, and honestly reacting to both current events and the media coverage they generate.” Why so? ” Weblogs can function as superb digests of online material. “ Agreed. No more questions 🙂