Over at Jay Rosen's place, he has put out a giant treatise on blogging and how it relates to the traditional view of journalism. There is no doubt in his mind, and now mine, that the debate over blogger vs journalist is now over.

Central to Rosen's thinking on the subject is an extraordinary post by Winston-Salem blogger Jon Lowder.  Jon compares and contrasts his driveway-delivered Winston Salem Journal to the one that is thrown on my sidewalk every morning here in Greensboro.  Jon reveals that he is an online news consumer and he likes Greensboro's product much better than what the Journal is doing.  

The main reason for his preference between the two competing daily publications, the headquarters of which are separated by half-an-hour's commute, is the presence of actual voices emanating from the News & Record via their weblogs (sports, general, guvment, schools, boss).  Lowder perceives that The N&R is conversing with him, while the Journal is still preaching with the top-down disembodied voice of recent antiquity.  Sez Jon....

"... it would probably pain the editor at the Journal (I have no idea what his/her name is) to know that I feel like I'm on a first name basis with the editor of the Greensboro News & Record (Hi John!)."

Rosen's piece is excellent and Lowder's post is priceless.  Read them both.

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OK folks, ideas are easy... what we need here is some execution.

If someone doesn't take a lead position on putting together the "teach-in" for local government officials, an important opportunity will be shuffled too far into the background.  Trying to organize something like that by committee ain't going to get it.  We need a bull horn grabber.  We have a place and suggested time... now someone needs to get on with it.

I've got entirely too many irons in the fire already, so it won't be me... but I will certainly help.

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After Yes! Weekly's editor, Brian Clarey, came in to comment on my recent post about his newspaper's inclusion of, "The Blogging of Yes! Weekly", some interesting and important points have been brought up in subsequent comments to the post.

Clarey states, "I'm actually mining the blogs for content right now..." and goes on to explain his policies for source recognition and how he intends to gain permission from bloggers before publishing any content.

Roch Smith Jr. fired a question back to Clarey, "What are your critera for deciding what's worth paying for and what should be gotten for free?"  Enter Cone and Chewie, and now you'll just have to read the whole thing and join in.

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