This post criticizing "professional" (the blogger's quotes) journalists is typical blogosphere rhetoric. I dunno. I've been a "professional" journalist for a couple of decades and a blogger for only a couple of months, but blogging strikes me as just about the softest gig I ever had. You can work when, and if, you want, you can take easy potshots at other people's hard work, and you can rely on links to do all of your heavy-lifting research. The old journalism axiom is "Get it first, but get it right." In the blogosphere, that seems to have been replaced by, "Get it when you get around to it, and get it right eventually." Of course, there's no money in blogging, but there's not much money in journalism for most reporters either.

The blogger does have a point that most "professional" journalists are excessively reluctant to own up to mistakes. But he misses the very practical reason for that: Making errors in "professional" publications is highly career threatening. Those who would argue that Jayson Blair proves I am wrong have it exactly backward: Blair's bosses' got fired precisely because they didn't treat Blair the way most erring reporters would have been treated. Normally, fact-challenged reporters get canned.

It would be nice if "professional" journalists were more willing to admit their mistakes, but that requires a level of courage that isn't necessary to survive in the blogging world.