What's in a blog?

I've been thinking about blogs lately. There was one of the crabby old journalists on TV on Sunday morning saying that he hopes bloggers develop the same ethical standards as journalists. He thought that bloggers unfairly brought down CNN's chief.

It is true that bloggers seem to be more inflammatory in their language than regular journalists. If you want readers to pay attention, one way is to say radical and daring things. It seems like part of what is going on is the inevitable tension between democratic forms of expression and the elites who think the mob can't be trusted.

On the other hand, the elites have long been somewhat hypocritical. They say one thing to those who are among their kind and then have another thing to say when the matter is for public consumption. The Harvard president was a perfect example of that. He thought that among other elites, he was safe in making completely stupid and damaging remarks. The kind of journalistic ethics that allows for on the record/ off the record remarks from public officials is really just a way for journalists to themselves be part of the elite.

Interestingly, journalists are currently more despised than lawyers as a profession. Possibly because they're a bunch of sanctimonious sell-outs, but I'm just a blogger with no ethical responsibilities....