All this blogging has got to stop

What on earth is this? 'Christmas Brownies land in Iraq'? Why is the Associated Press, one of the world's most successful news agencies, trying - rather ineptly - to become part of the blogosphere? A series of lame diary entries with no 'comments' function is not a blog, but why is it necessary for an organization such as AP to even consider 'blogging' anyway? This kind of sub-[insert name of any 24-hour rolling TV news channel] fare is both boring and counter-productive. A good news report needs no dressing up in the (soon to be un)fashionable clothes of the blog.
While I'm ranting about blogs and the mass media, I also have to say things were better when online newspapers didn't give anyone an instant right of reply to their op-ed pieces. If I want to read the ravings of (often semi-literate) cranks and ideologues I will go and look for them on their own web pages. If I want to read articles selected as being of interest by trained journalists I will do that too. Oil and water still don't mix. The main effect of the blogging/journalism crossover (apart from degrading English spelling and grammar still further) seems to be to turn print journalism into an extension of the 'news for news's sake', '24-hours-and-nothing-to-fill' world of rolling TV news. Sometimes less really is more.