As a respite to all the recent exchange of verbal blows over blogging and journalism, this is a refreshing op-ed in The Guardian from co-founder of Salon.com Scott Rosenberg.

He avoid getting into a fruitless debate about whether blogging is journalism and instead talks about how “from the dawn of blogging it’s been tempting for established professionals to reject blogging as trivial and unreliable”.

Most journalists’ understanding of the nature of blogging has been circumscribed by a focus on how it might affect our profession. We write articles about whether blogging can be journalism, we worry about whether bloggers can or will replace journalists, and we miss the real stories.

Blogs provide a tool for free expression, and this is something that journalists regularly campaign for. So it is ironic that they should fear, dismiss or undermine others who seek to have a voice.

As Rosenberg argues, “blogging has redrawn the line between private communication and mass publication”, as it allows anyone to share their life experience with an audience.

Rosenberg’s insight is to make a distinction between the publication of a post and the viewing of a post. “When anyone can publish anything, the moment of truth isn’t when you press the post button, it’s when others choose to read what you’ve said.”

This is a fundamental point. The value of a blog is not decided by its author but by its readers. Each of us can decide whether or not to spend our time on a blog. How we value the contribution of each and every blog is a personal decision. The web means we can be our own editors, investing our time in the media that helps us understand the world, be it a blog or a newspaper website.