A CNN war correspondent was told to shut down his popular site, touching off an ongoing debate on blogging as a legitimate form of journalism. This, from Susan Mernit, raises quite a few questions.

I wonder: If journalists spend years training, why should amateurs think they can do a balanced job? (Is journalism ever balanced?) Journalists may be imperfect messengers, but does that mean you want your news from the equivalent of the local gossip? Blogging is quite a question raiser, innit.

You could be flogged alive if caught promoting a product on your blog without disclosing any affiliations, or payments for writing services. Well, not quite, but flogging, where corporate bloggers masquerade as normal folks and talk up their products as if they were a customer, is frowned upon by Technorati and the authorities.

I call flogging A dose of real life and quite amusing, because when they are outed, these corporations get even more publicity, more sales and no black marks worth diddly.
You know, who is going to boycott Sony because an everyday guy called Charlie is in fact Hiro Yakamota (made up name) from the Sony Corporation Marketing Department? Noone.

And perversely, I expect a small blogger like myself would probably be lambasted and abandoned by all and sundry for surreptitiously talking up products I was getting paid a commission for. Oh well, we should just do the right thing and disclose all, and meanwhile, expect creative corporate flogs to slip through the net. As you were and back to real life.

For surreal blogging, why not log the daily goings on in Second life? Talk about rich pickings for schizophrenics.

The Blog Interrogations caught fire with Hari, a funny guy with more brains than are good for me. See if you can better his answers to these 5 questions. I also have a review policy now.

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