Newspaper's Blogs

In linking to the 'article' below about the 48th and the armored Humvee issue, I realize that what I linked to was a 'blog'.

I'm not sure I want newspapers to have blogs. It gives them an excuse to editorialize in their articles. Instead of sending out 'journalists' who are supposed to give us the 5 W's, we get newspaper paid bloggers who aren't expected (right) to give us fair and unbiased news.

In my opinion, if a newspaper wants to editorialize, it should do so in the editorial pages. Not offer up a ocmpany run blog and present that as 'reporting' from the front.

Not to mention that my comment to the AJC, rather critical of their article, was censored. The only two notes allowed earlier were short little thank you notes from families of the 48th and such. Granted, the line above the comment section says that "Your comment will appear after it has been approved by the AJC."

So you get comments like Ruth's approved:

By Ruth
August 11, 2005 01:21 PM

Well Sec. Rumsfeld, I guess the army you have is one with Rhino Runners but the army the troops have is one with Humvees.

Not very blog-like is it?

But then again, if a newspaper truly goes bloggy (ie. allowing free comments and criticisms) maybe a newspaper would be open to being fact checked by the public and instantly held accountable for their reporting. So maybe it's not a bad thing.

But this half-baked attempt at newspapers running blogs to cover real stories is really beginning to stick in my craw. What say you?