Journalism died many years ago. Blogging has a dichotomy of the same problem. There have been few Journalists of any repute, for many years. Most are of ill repute. Truth, integrity, objectivity and good writing skills are lacking in what most call journalist today... By the way... Journalism classes do not have any of those subjects taught as a guideline, only for laughs if at all. I say this after talking with professors and students. Those are old hat ideas, not practical. Talking heads on the tube are worse, they have to read someone else's lies and try not to think..

Blogs... their problems are similar. Truth is not an issue. Only their agenda, be it left, right or airhead.

That you can get stories out of blogs, is no different than getting them somewhere else.

I used to read 5 newspapers to find what may be the essence of one sentence that was the story... if that.

Most blogers have an agenda and are not a reliable source of anything. They are just as honest as the media. Not at all.

If you are careful, and read several blogs, you may find the story, or not.

For real news, If the news media would print it, I would prefer papers. Haven't really read them for almost 20 years, since... They don't.

The Odwalla bottle really completes that photo

She got paid from Intel with a Dell laptop. Maybe AMD can use that in court as an example of Dell and Intel being in bed together. ;-)

The problem with blogs is that there are no editors. There are many ego's, some might have something interesting to say, but I doubt most have.

I'm suprised that there isn't a reality web show. Like Big Brother but all on the internet.

"Oh, hey, I blog about Intel all the time!" said Barbie, adding, "They pay me and give me loads of cool stuff".

*eyes flashing* (ka-ching!)

Firstly, this article, written as it is, is precisely one of the major reasons that "journalism" is dying. Its poorly written, badly researched, lacks credible balance and on the whole is simply trying to pander to a stereotype, after all "everyone" knows bloggers are just pimply young individuals who are just geeks and losers who cant get real jobs so write about their life from the safety of their bedrooms, before their mom's tell them its time for bed. Blogging has come a long way in a very short time. As for the people in the blogging lounge being boring, not sure when you were there Michelle but most of the time I was in there it was a group of lively individuals having a great time and making great conversation, the likes of Chris Brogan, Jason Falls, Shannon Paul, Liz Strauss, Brian Solis, I wouldn't exactly call them boring and I managed to get one to one time with all of them and ask them real questions. Shame the journo writing this didnt bother doing the same. Oh and Omar was probably in the press lounge with the rest of the Journo's, where the writer of this piece should have stayed.

Honestly, most of the bloggers in the blogging lounge at SxSW were perhaps the most boring people at the conference. It's like a ponzi scheme to be the most popular kid at school

I wish Hugh Forrest (the guy who puts SxSW together) would reward people like Omar Gallaga, who works for the Austin American Statesman and ACTUALLY produced USEFUL INFORMATION about SxSW. Social media isn't a popularity contest. It's a means to communicate. With the economy being the way it is, there is no time for "social media rockstars".

Don't bother checking out Twitter, it is about 99% useless. Every time I see a bunch of self important hipsters sitting around blogging, as if they are doing something useful with their laptops covered in stickers, part of me vomits a little.

As fluffy as the Inq can be at times, and as much as Charlie now lives in a conspiracy hole raging against Nvidia, the Inq is not supposed to be a heavy news site. They are opinionated and energetic, and it makes for good reading with information mixed in here and there. The one thing they are not is self important and full of it, and that is what will forever separate them from the blog-o-sphere

I hope all the attention whores are happy now.

This is a great article. I dunno these bloggers seem to think that just becasue someone follows them on Twitter (or whatever it is, I've not checked out Twitter yet) or get a couple of comments on a blog that they're the future of news?

I'm not a journalist myself but having spent nearly 2 years in a busy news room bustling with journos I can just imagine these these iNumpties wouldn't last 5 minutes in the real world of journalism.

As my mate Gareth (news editor) would put it, I'm hating on these blogging tits.

Don't think you've got much to worry about Sylvie.

Rob

The 'real' inq fans would realize that pointing out the 'irony' in this article (as if she didn't realize it) is like when people post that they don't know what a 'vole' is, or ask the writers to use 'real english.' lol. On the other hand, I love the author (and her shirt) and will gladly give her article a response - it shows the editors (and advertizers) that we pay attention.

You make that shirt look nice

So it was a fun read, but i can't help feeling that this article lacks investigation or fact checking, is mostly anecdotal, and somewhat out of place as 'news'. A more suitable home might be, dare i say it, a blog!

It's ironic hearing the inquirer call someone elses work 'feeding the rumour mill' considering the rep they have.

... nice shirt!

By your own definition of blogging (and let's paraphrase that, and say that it's something like: "publishing badly-spelled, and often wildy inaccurate rumours and opinions, on-line, on a glorified bulletin board") how is The Inquirer NOT a blog? Would the print media be able to get away with the continual stream of miss-stories and failed predictions that you lot do, by just forgetting your missteps and pointing to the relatively rare occasions that you get it spot on?

That's not a criticism, by the way: your exisitence proves that this rather vacuous, short-lived, form of publishing has its place. But you're still a blog. The only real grading that distinguishes blogs, is how many people can be bothered reading them. The Inquirer is statistically significant, so you're worth lying-, leaking- and rumouring-to... because enough people read you, and you don't apply a particularly rigorous bullshit filter, to what you're given, before slapping it up, for fear of harming the 'scoop'. As long as your readers have enough nous, to give only as much credence, to what they are reading, as it deserves, then that, too, has its place.

Just don't get too snooty about yourselves, relative to these idiots. There's only one blogger wearing a red cape in a balloon, and it's not you.

I think blogging is driven by the very same urge that causes us (readers) to comment on articles we read ;-). Just look at Charlie's nVidia articles - the comments are more fun to read than articles themselves !

.. requires skill, judgement, a keen mind and the ability to write.

Something the Inq and the bloggers seem to lack.

Their assertion is *fundamentally flawed* because the very essence of true journalism is objectivity, whereas blogging is inheritly subjective--reflecting the experiences and opinions of the author.

Nice rugby shirt!