Is You Is Or Is You Ain't A Journalist?

Reason writers around town: At the National Post, Matt Welch gives a convention blognosis.

Comments

[J]

Matt Welch is the best! (Plus he has _by far_ the coolest picture in the print version of Reason.) I always get something out of his stuff. And his question of who is a journalist (or who defines what a journalist is, and how) is a very interesting one. It would be enlightening to see Alex S. Jones or Tom Rosenstiel or Anick Jesdanun try to answer it - and to see if they could answer it without sounding comically self-important and more than a little bit defensive.

[Ironchef]

A good read. Funny how the Dems are trumpeting the prominence of bloggers while the mass media is discrediting (or inthe least, questioning) them.

[Gadfly]

I wonder if Matt (or Al Jazeera, for that matter) are covered by the press' rights of free speech? Would the law treat him like Cooper or Novak? If Matt posted the name of a CIA agent or outed a gay governor would he have any legal cover?

Slow day. Just wondering.

[irilyth]

I wonder if more people mis-spell Matt Welch's name than mistake Anick Jesdanun's gender. (I'm pretty sure he's male.)

[Matt Welch]

Larry A -- I am too a journalist!

Actually, as I attempted to make clear, I was credentialed as a magazine journalist, not a blogger, and if I felt the need to define myself, it would be much more the latter than the former. It's just that most of my work from there was written on a blog.

Whatever; not like any of that is interesting. I just wanted to get "Booger" in a headline.

[bb]

As much as I love blogs, the whole convention blogging was a bust. In fact, IMHO, it set the whole thing back. While the 35 seemed to think their daily experiences of being interviewed and being uncomfortable and wanting to PARTY! were riviting stories, I couldn't have cared less. Believe it or not, I wanted to hear about this thing that was going on called the Democratic Convention.

Better luck next time.

[Larry A]

Interesting conjunction. Here, Matt Welch isn't a "journalist," he's just a blogger. In Bagge's item next to it Norman Rockwell isn't an "artist," he's just an illustrator.

Can we spell elitism?