QotD: Blogging

["Participatory journalism"] is a good thing, especially when too many media are run in the corporate, and not the public, interest. But make no mistake. Despite all the praise last week for bloggers, vloggers and other so-called "citizen journalists," they are very threatening to many MSM types.

Bloggers fact-check corporate media. They un-spin, de-spin and re-spin. They needle. They whip up their readers who write emails of complaint. In short, they can be giant pains in our ergonomically cosseted asses.

Last month, a study co-sponsored by Columbia University showed that while more than half of all journalists rely on bloggers for ideas, only 1 per cent found blogs to be credible.

Antonia Zerbisias, "Technology has made 'journalists' of us all", Toronto Star, 2005-07-12

Update, 13 July: I am reminded through the comments that I failed to provide a hat tip to Elizabeth for digging this one up for me. Apologies for the oversight!