While I was hard at work on my project this weekend, Linda Seebach of the Rocky Mountain News wrote a column about bloggers and journalism, one of the more popular topics these days in the blogosphere. I knew that Linda planned on writing the article before it got published, but I missed it when it came out in all of the long hours we put into finishing the move. Linda, who has a long pedigree in the news business, agrees with me that journalism does not depend on newsprint for its existence or identification:

Are bloggers journalists? Sure, when they do journalism, and Ed Morrissey, Captain Ed at the Web log called Captain's Quarters, certainly was doing journalism when he blew open a Canadian corruption scandal that was under a judicial publication ban in Canada.

There's been hardly any coverage of what the Canadians call "AdScam" in the U.S. press, although something that could cause the Canadian government to fall ought to be of interest to that country's southern neighbor ...

While the ban was in effect, there was even a question about whether Canadian newspapers and broadcasters could tell their readers about Morrissey's posts; one official said the commission was considering whether to prosecute a Canadian Web site that linked to Captain's Quarters. Either the official is hopelessly naïve, Morrissey said, "or he gets the Captain Louis Renault award for being shocked, shocked that free speech goes on in a democracy."

Well, the witness' trial was postponed and most of the publication ban was lifted, although it no longer served any purpose anyway. The accuracy of Morrissey's source was confirmed, and he has continued to follow the story. But he now has the company of Canadian media.

I call that journalism, and we can only hope that Canadian bloggers will perform a similar service during our elections, when politically active American organizations (although not established media) are muzzled by the detestable McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

Linda also notes the post at Jay Rosen's Pressthink, where Chris Nolan wrote about stand-alone journalists in a similar vein. Linda treats me quite kindly, but many other bloggers perform journalism on a regular basis as well as diarize on their personal lives and provide punditry to their regular readers. Be sure to read her entire column.

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