Good piece, Bill. I just tried to take a look at Korski's article but, alas, it was a PDF locked behind a subscriber wall. That fact alone speaks volumes about what the Hill Times knows about online publishing. I see a parallel between the "blogs as journalism" issue and the same sex marriage issue. The problem that traditionalists have is with changing definitions. Just as some entrenched "Christians" contend that gay marriage can't be real marriage, employed journalists contend that blogging can't be real journalism. For that to be so, the definition of journalism would have to change. I tend to agree. For the most part, blogging is not journalism. You hit the nail on the head with the anecdote regarding student newspaper writers. Bloggers are not motivated to go out and report. We are mostly satisfied with reacting to news reports or passing along our opinions on the issues of the day. Bloggers are op-ed writers or reviewers - not newsgatherers. I know a few MSM journalists. Many would welcome the day they could be freed from the obligation of reporting on boring council or school board meetings and move up the corporate ladder to be editorial writers. In smaller newspapers, some writers do dual duty. The quality of their output when writing the occasional editorial indicates a level of motivation not seen in their humdrum day-to-day reportage. Bloggers may raise the ire of some MSM types simply because they are seen as queue-jumpers - going straight to editorial writing without paying the requisite dues. What MSM journalists should consider is that, with few exceptions, bloggers write without any monetary remuneration: zip, nada, nothing. As an outsider looking in at the MSM's bafflement regarding blogging, I think those reporters who aspire to be columnists or op-ed writers should be seizing the opportunity presented by blogging. What better place to hone one's skills? Rather than denigrating the efforts of amateur writers, why not use a blog as a writer's portfolio? By failing to embrace blogging as a tool in the professional journalist's toolbox, reporters could easily be setting the stage for being passed over for promotion to columnist. When MSM organizations start to hire fresh, new columnists from the ranks of bloggers, reporters will have only themselves to blame. After all, setting up a blog costs nearly nothing but a modest investment of time. I tend to disagree with Marc re blogging needing a major media corporation to get involved in order for blogging to succeed. It already is succeeding. If the only yardstick by which success is measured is money, then blogging has not yet demonstrated viability. However, if readership, influence and mass-participation are part of the ingredients of success, blogs are doing quite nicely, thank you.