I’m keen not to restage the “bloggers v. journos” debate as I think it’s wrongly framed for a number of reasons. First, blogging is in fact a much richer suite of practices, norms and communicative styles and interactions than is usually captured by positing it as an alternative or supplement to journalism, and I think is interesting and in many instances laudable in its own right. Margaret Simons, who’ll be one of the speakers on Saturday, has a useful taxonomy of blogs published this week at Creative Economy Online, which captures much of the diversity of the range of practices that make up the blogosphere.

Secondly, I think the actual subtext to much of the so-called debate is a threat to the professional identity of journos. That probably gets me close to the topic – because I agree with my co-panelist Axel Bruns (who previewed his thoughts at Gatewatching the other day) that in many instances the sorts of work bloggers do prefigures what is now required of journos. There appears to be a misperception that blogging just happens, that all it takes is a keyboard and an internet connection, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ll probably talk a little about that from my own experience, and I think it’s important to see it within the context of a broader challenge to the boundedness of professional identities and practices which is one of the key characteristics of work generally at the present time.

There’s been a bit of discussion about blogging and journalism around the traps recently, in the context of the “quality journalism” debate kicked on by the Fairfax sackings and strike. Where Mark Day gets it wrong, I think, is that he recites another cliche of the journos v. bloggers wars – the claim that blogs don’t “break news”. That’s sometimes untrue, but even if it is largely true, it misses the point. There’s a difference between “news gathering” and analysis, commentary and interaction which is what the blogosphere provides – and transparently. That’s where its value, I think, lies. Again, there’s a sort of mythology at work here with fearless journos pounding the streets in search of a story which rarely reflects contemporary media work practices. On the other hand, bloggers like me do have our own networks and people we talk to – in the context of political blogging including contemporaries who are active participants, party strategists, etc. But they’re not regarded as “sources”. It’s more a matter, I think, as Kim said, of reconfiguring, analysing and throwing open bites of information as it were and particular perspectives.

The other point I probably want to make – and this goes also to Axel’s point about where skills and capacities can be found and disrupting the pro/amateur distinction – is what I and others at LP argued in a recent discussion over two threads with George Megalogenis … which is that it’s interesting that when News Ltd began its co-optation of the blog form, (and I still think that most if not all of the MSM ‘blogs’ are better characterised as message boards), it didn’t appear to occur to anyone concerned that the facilitation of community and interaction is itself a skill and a potentially transmissable one.

I’m not sure where all this leaves the “quality journalism” debate but I’ve got a strong feeling it’s actually completely unrelated to the whole question of the blogosphere. Others may of course have a different view!