And this writer manages to get the dynamic completely wrong in a panel discussion:
Bertrand Pecquerie, director of the World Editor's Forum and blogger at editorsweblog.org had many interesting things to say. He described how in the US the journalist - blogger debate is an often-nasty combat. He worries about the lack of an editorial body for bloggers. For example, he said, journalists have a group behind them who analyzes the facts, provides guidance, etc. He refers to this group as a collective intelligence. He believes this collective intelligence is missing in the blogosphere.
M. Pecquerie says that bloggers go from "breaking news" to "comments" - the entire step of running it through an editorial filter is missing. The reply to this, of course, is that the blogger's readers act as this editorial filter. A different kind of collective intelligence, if you will. He doesn't really buy this, however, due to the gap in time between blogging and response, among other reasons.
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Amazing. Absolutely amazing that Pecquerie could say this with a straight face months after Rathergate.