Blogs have drawn attention to political stories that more established media outlets then report on, and exposed flawed journalism by those same newspapers and television news programs. But some at the gathering said they face a near-constant struggle to establish the credibility enjoyed by professionals.

I don't have to worry about establishing credibility since no-body visits Esoteric * Diatribe.

Glaser noted the importance of bloggers in tearing down CBS News' election season story about President Bush (news - web sites)'s service in the Texas Air National Guard. The constant barrage of questions and charges from the Web kept heat on the network until it admitted a mistake in relying on what turned out to be fake documents

Dan Ra^ther caught in a lie... life doesn't get much sweeter, does it? But lets not forget that Bloggers helped tell the tale of Kerry's protest days - that he is a self-admitted war criminal, that he did not spend Christmas in Cambodia, etc - bloggers helped spread the word about the bogus NYT story. The bloggers have accomplished quite a lot; no longer can the media silence the opposing view or get away with shoddy stories based on false information.

"Our credibility is suffering with so many people rushing to publish things without checking them out," McAdams said after Cox's speech. "Blogging is really great. I like that more and more people have a voice. That's good ... But it doesn't give people who call themselves journalists an excuse to not check out the information."

Well that is simple to deal with... bloggers are not journalists. Part of good blogging involves speculation and editorial feedback. Journalists can blog and bloggers can write posts of the highest standards of journalistic integrity, but lets not confuse the terms or their purposes.