The model is changing and right now is the best time to be reading blogs. Once blogs turn into the “unbiased” fair and balanced content you expect from traditional media, the honeymoon will be over. The great thing about blogs is that usually there is no video to go with them. If I never see another talking head in tv makeup it won’t be too soon.

As a current public relations student I have learned a great deal of the importance of social media and not to discredit it as a legitimate media source. The fact is that the public reads blogs and blogs deliver information, just like any news outlet. I believe the validity of a blog is really up to ones discretion. We live in a time where were really have to pick and choose what we believe, and blogs give us a wide spectrum of information in different ways. We have professional bloggers, who are paid and have their work edited, very similar to any news outlet. There are personal bloggers, such as Perez Hilton who has propelled himself to celebrity status with the popularity of his blog and blogs such as PR Squared, where an industry professional shares an educated opinion about his craft. These are the blogs blur the line between blogger and member of the media. These are the types of blogs that public relations practitioners seek out as a source for legitimate coverage, or so I have been taught. But anyone off the street can start a blog. It’s the mass amount of personal blogs that cause the public to be more alert of what they choose to consider a credible source of information and that make us question the world of bloggers in the first place.

Yes, the blogs (and bloggers) that function as watchdogs and social/media critics are wonderful and a step beyond the normal, everyday blogs, but they are part of the media. Trying to put them on some elevated pedestal away from the din of everything else isn’t correct. If you give them a press badge. they are media.

This registration is with thenewsmarket, not with IBM, and I don’t know how much checking goes on … but I still think it suggests that IBM’s PR team are recognising that bloggers are part of their audience. This is the first blogger oriented link from a corporate site I’ve noticed like this; if there are others, I’d like to know.

The second criteria, “contributions of heretofore “traditional” journalists”, is a bit more odd to me. For example, if a Times reporter did a weekly guest spot on his son’s video game blog, would push the blog towards media status?

By the way I’m not arguing here – in fact I agree with you for the most part. I’m just trying to see where you view ‘the line’.