After last month's anti-blog rant by the New York Times' Geoffrey Nunberg, The Observer's John Naughton stepped into the fray with praise for those who publish their thoughts on the web.
"I would sooner pay attention to particular blogs than anything published in 'big media'," he said. "Journalistic coverage is inevitably superficial and often misleading, which is why so many blogs are thoughtful and accurate by comparison.
"Many controversial subjects are ignored by big media for the simple reason that the ideological and commercial interests of their proprietors preclude it."
Mr Nunberg had criticised bloggers for being unprofessional, and complained that Google searches threw up more weblogs than mainstream news websites. Mr Naughton retorted: "One reason blogs show up so prominently in searches is because they are available on the web while big media sources are increasingly not. They are locked behind pay-for firewalls."
He added: "It's not that journalists are idiots, it's just that serious subjects are complicated and hacks have neither the training nor the time to reach a serious understanding of them."
• A new craze called 'moblogging' has hit the web. The practice involves uploading digital photos from a mobile phone to a personal website. Several companies are offering the service, which includes text file uploads, for free.
Sources:
http://www.observer.co.uk/Print/0,3858,4681014,00.html
http://www.mbites.com
http://www.20six.co.uk
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