Blogging the politics

It's no coincidence that many of the political enzed blogers are either journalists, former journalists, used to work in Parliament or are working there currently. In the US the Democrats and the Republicans are inviting bloggers to their 2004 conventions.

DOesn't make them journalists, according to The writer of this LA Times article Mind you, some journalists who write on politics are not as insightful as some of the bloggers on the sidebar of this blog. Maybe some bloggers are analysing other journalists' analysis.

Journalists read blogs to pick up tips. So do bloggers. Politicians read blogs to get a heads up. Some journalists and bloggers blog because they want to speak their mind.

But will bloggers ever be seen as credible, and be as widely read as journalists in the print and electonic media? In New Zealand Scoop Media has been posting some blog postings - in fact this blog developed from a weekly scoop column of the same name written while I was a journalist - but will bloggers ever be seen as more than gossipy commentators?

However, nothing beats the immediacy of blogging - and there's no subs, editors and newsroom politics to deal with -and you can delete defamation as quickly as you you write it :-)