The Colonial and early American newspapers printed stories from beyond their own cities by borrowing (without payment) stories from outside newspapers that came in my mail, or by printing letters from outsiders as if they were correspondents. (That's what they were, literally, since the word originally meant people who exchanged letters with one another.
Bottom line: substitute e-mails for letters, and blog sites for newspapers, and what you see LGF doing here is EXACTLY how original newspapers like the Brunswick Gazette (one of my favorites) reported the news in 1787.
If the people at the Columbia J School had a clue about the history of their profession, they would note this parallel, and applaud this development. But they don't, and don't.
Congressman Billybob
So true. 200+ years later the concept of "We" in "We the people..." has now become a reality for those visionary men, some of the greatest minds to ever inhabit planet earth.
Your analysis is spot on. The weblogs represent the broad sheets of yeaterday. LGF has an extra advatage in that they have an audio file to go with the written report. Not easily dismissed.
The Columbia J School represents the old world view. It wants to discuss the rules and what is right and proper as well as to determine who can be called journalist. They need to be working on how to survive this information age. The American Spectator did an interesting interview with Tom Wolf in the issue published after the November election that the old media should pay attention to.
bump
I was actually the guy who put the black tape on the door jam in the Watergate back on that infamous night in 1972.
;-)