Real writing is fiction, he is talking about doing Investigative Journalism. So what is to stop him?

As to the blogs here, well it is like a casual conversation amongst like minded people, why get all self-righteous about that? Not everything needs to be hyper serious. I would rather read Willyard than David Appell anyway.

I agree with blackton.  The model here is conversation, not journalism.  Though blogs can include reporting, the best aspect of this medium is often evident right here - in the conversations that take place.  There's real value in that.

Neil

Hmm. So blogs are not worth reading because they're written by people who don't have any experience or expertise?

Wait a minute. Why assume that? Aren't there a lot of bloggers out there who *do* have those things?

In fact, blogging allows people to choose to focus single-mindedly on a specialty of theirs. The linked blog post is focusing on super-MSM blogs like Yglesias and Sullivan, which have an unusual burden to be well-rounded. So that's a bad sample.

Um...what was the question?

See, I've been trying to dig out this ingrown hair, and I left my tweezers on the bus--always carry tweezers; you never know when you'll encounter some filthy-rich dowager whose lap dog just picked up a splinter--so I went next door to borrow a pair, and Bob was at work but Bonnie was home and, well, I think she'd been drinking, because when I asked if could borrow some tweezers she just gave me that little smile--you know the one, not the big teeth-flashing grin or the polite pursed-lips push-away-type smile but that closed mouth, slow, it's-just-the-two-of-us smile with the steady gaze through slightly closed lids and, well, I've seen this movie before and it ends badly for Our Hero, so I mumbled some ludicrous excuse like "Oops! I left the kitten boiling on the stove" and backed out of there pronto. Whew!

[pats brow with hankie]

So...Um. What? Sorry. I'll have to start paying closer attention.

Blogging is a fad that will pass when more sophisticated social networking and messaging platforms appear. MySpace and Facebook pages/"walls", embedded chat, wireless/iPhone applications: all of these and others not yet developed will create easy tools for one-to-few postings that achieve what blogging was meant to achieve, which is rapid, casual brainstorming that's of interest mainly to a handful of people who know and trust you-- not 100's of 1000's of strangers.

Old Media shall rise again. Aka real reporting, solid fact-based analysis, carefully edited prose that tells people things that are true which they didn't know already.

"Old Media shall rise again. Aka real reporting, solid fact-based analysis, carefully edited prose that tells people things that are true which they didn't know already."

Rise again?! You mean there ever was a time when the MSM could have been described as honest and informative?