The disconnect on Blog opinion

I found the article, "Blogs Influence Availability of News, but Not Quality" to be very interesting. The statistic that really made me think was that over 50 percent of journalists read blogs at least two to three times a week.

That study fails to clarify if the journalists were reading for work-related reasons or just for entertainment, however, the information is conflicting with my earlier thoughts that so called "professional journalists" feared the spread of citizen journalism. I am happy to see a growing number of journalists expanding and supplementing the way news is collected.

Like most online information sources, blogs must be taken with a grain of salt. Of the journalists surveyed, the majority responded that they used blogs as a way to gain insight into a debate or discussion rather than as a source of breaking news or for validating news sources. In my opinion, this cautious but open- minded approach is a healthy one. We are not at a point where we can trust strangers on the other side of the world wide web to be valid sources but we can certainly use blogs and other forums to gain insight on public opinion.

Scott Gant, author of "We're All Journalists Now", made a comment on page 25 of his book about the necessity to recognize blogs that I completely agree with.

"Among other things, the Web has created an enormous supply of people who want to share information and ideas with a wide audience, and there are increasing
numbers of people interested in hearing and discussing what they have to say."

This is such a valid point because if the general public is not ignoring the issues and discussions appearing in blogs it would be irresponsible for journalists to do so. After all, everyone is most interested in the news that affects them.

Our society is based on a system of checks and balances. The media has traditionally served as one way of keeping the government in line. Citizen journalists, especially bloggers, are now playing the role of watch dogs of the media. For example, the blog Powerline was able to discover irresponsible journalism (regarding George W. Bush's military service) from CBS and Dan Rather that knocked the network and several of its workers off their pedestals. I view some public monitor of the media as a positive thing. Skepticism has its place and time.

Statistics currently show a disconnect between journalists' opinion on blogs and the general public's opinion on blogs. It also seems conflicting that studies have determined around 80 percent of journalists do not consider blogs a serious form of journalism and yet about that same percent check blogs on a regular basis. Obviously there is material worth reading out there.

For every blog that breaks news about presidential scandal or contains insightful comments on the state of the environment, there are twenty more blogs that serve as writer's diaries. These blogs range from detailing a summer vacation to describing how cute a new puppy is in excrutiating detail.

I think it's worth sorting through all the bad to get to the good.