  Okay, so I'm the only one who wants to use this space for long-winded, debate-inducing diatribes. I'll deal with it.
As I was tooling around the net, my attention was drawn to a urlLink column in the Boston Globe about the "blog phemonenon. " Personally, I thought it was an ill-conceived hack-job, and told the author as much. Here's my e-mail to him: To: urlLink beam@globe.com Subject: talk is cheap, indeed.... Alex "Esteemed Journalist at a Widely Distributed Corporate-Owned Newspaper" Beam - As I'm sure you've heard by now, more than you ever possibly thought when you started writing that piece, your remarks on the "blogging" fad are a little off-base.
"Welcome to Blogistan, the Internet-based journalistic medium where no thought goes unpublished ..." This is your first mistake, really...most web-loggers don't try to convince themselves, or their readers that they are journalists, or are subject to the supposedly high standards of "journalistic integrity. " They are, if thinking about it in old-media terms will help you, stream-of-consciousness op-ed writers. Which is actually kind of funny, considering how many stream-of-consciousness op-ed writers "in medi(a) that people actually read" try to convince folks that they're journalists... Secondly, if John Ellis' whole purpose in updating his blog is to please the 35 people who are "really into" his updated golf scores, so be it.
Web-loggers are neither attempting to meet the general public interest, nor are they catering to the lowest common denominator. Because our solvency is not dependent on being able to sell enough advertising to off-set the costs of operation. Web-loggers take the notion of narrow-casting and run with it. Old-media icons (television programmers and the cable industry, in particular) have been trying to make that idea sell for years. Not to mention that Lileks' blog is probably the least-travelled portion of its site, because he is far more widely known around the net for his collection of pop-culture iconography. Thirdly, Andrew Sullivan, and John Ellis and James Lileks have old-media backgrounds. Their puffing up over their personal blogs is something they brought with them.
I am fully aware that from an organizational standpoint it is standard operating procedure in the commercial news biz to pretend as if your past employment and body of work don't exist when you move to a new organization, or in this case, medium. You mock bloggers because it is in your best interest to do so. Much like The Globe mocks the rival newspapers, and perhaps even the broadcast news operations in your market.
It's in your blood, as someone tied to (or tied down by) an "old-media" organization. The Boston Globe's survival, and consequently, your livelihood, pretty much necessitate it. If tomorrow you started working for The Boston Herald, it would be the Globe (and bloggers) that you were mocking. That's kind of the beauty of the web-logging phenomenon, and the self-congratulatory, self-referential nature of web-loggers. There is no organization to which they owe allegience, except themselves. No one is going to fire urlLink Tom Tomorrow when he makes reference to the work of Ted Rall in his blog.
Nor, for that matter, are the indy.alt.rags which publish his comic likely to drop him for making reference to your article "in a medium that people actually read. " Web-loggers are in a community, not a competition. Anyway, you are correct in saying that many blogs and bloggers are inane. More than a few people say the same thing about newspapers and newspaper columnists. And trust me, we are defnitely mocking you, even if there's no one to read it but ourselves. peace, Mark Geralds [UPDATE] There has been a huge backlash from the web-log community about this.
Two of whom happen to be people that the writer sent letters to, soliciting their input. urlLink James Lileks - urlLink www.lileks.com (a fascinating place to go if you have any appreciation for Pop Culture or "Americana") urlLink Virginia Postrel - urlLink www.dynamist.com (today was the first day I ever heard of her or her work) 
