Nicky Getgood, founder of the hyperlocal “Digbeth is Good” blog, explains why the “all blogs are rubbish” argument is… well… rubbish:

“I’m not saying journalists should come to my, or anyone’s blog, blindly trusting it… Just that it would be better for both journalists and bloggers if they came to blogs with an open mind. Because if they don’t , bloggers get tarnished with a rather dirty brush and journalists seriously miss out.”

More, including a fantastic metaphor describing the situation, can be found on her blog.

This is something I’ll put more thought into tomorrow, but I needed to post this in order to sleep!

It was prompted by a panel discussion at the Journalism Leaders Forum today where, once again, the “blogs are rubbish and can’t be trusted” mantra was trotted out by some of the panel members.

Why? Why are we still even having this debate?

Why is it that when you talk about blogs to some journalists, the images that pop into their heads are of the celebrity-obsessed, the political rumour-mongers or the batshit insane?

Why don’t they think about the first hand accounts of conflict, the well-respected tech news sites, the local community information or those producing focused industry analysis?

(Oh, and as for that “citizen journalism“… well who needs that?)