Bloggers ready to boot computers in Denver, ctrl-alt-delete Dems

There are bloggers and there are journalists.

Since the dawn of the mouse click, journalists have been saying bloggers aren't journalists.

Some bloggers beg to differ, while others shun the "journalist" moniker like the plague. It makes it hard to pin down the preferred nomenclature when bloggers are always jumping from journalist to blogger to citizen journalist to watchdog, quantum-leap style.

Sometimes journalists are the target of bloggers (colorado.mediamatters.org), sometimes the bloggers do the news gathering themselves.

For what seems a long time now, bloggers have wanted all the rights and privileges of working, professional journalists.

When I got through trying to figure out why they'd want to eat ham sandwiches and ramen noodles all the time, I figured out that what they want is what we want: truth.

And now it looks like they're getting their way, at least partially.

The Associated Press is reporting that bloggers will be given an expanded role at next year's Democratic National Convention.

Basically shut out of 2004's convention, the wannabe ink-stained wretches cried foul and some will be given actual press credentials next year.

Now, I don't have to go over the difference between journalists and bloggers.

Journalists: Love the smell of the presses putting ink on paper.
Bloggers: Love the metallic smell of a broken hard drive.

Among other things.

But we share a love for seeking truth, though bloggers typically don't have the oversight or will to report as objectively as we do.

Is it a dangerous precedent to set to let such advocacy-driven writers into the fray?

Nah, we could use the company. It gets lonely being the only ones with a constant target on our backs.

Plus, we could always just ctrl-alt-delete them.