There is a conservative bias. You can see it in Fox News and at this time in others as the news agencies always cozy up to the players in power. When Clinton was in office they tilted clearly left. Many still want to lean left, but because of the political reality they have shifted somewhat right. This is true for all of the major media.

One would have to be blind not to see how even the commercials start to adopt the styles of the powers that be. When Jackie was first lady the pillbox hat and short bob could be seen everywhere. In 1993 it was amazing how many women on TV commercials and in advertising had "Hillary Hair", and now with Laura Bush we see a similar morphing of advertising. Bush has clearly had an effect on the media.

If by conservative bias you mean the news agencies and their personnel are mostly conservative-that would NOT be the case. They are mostly liberal. However they have been forced to adopt a more conservative stance. You won't hear any argument from me that the media has shifted right somewhat in the past five years-because I believe it has.

Your idea that some standards in blogging will develop confounds me. Who is going to set these standards? Does the major media have standards that they apply? They compete. Competition and success breeds imitation. That the major media are clones of each other is fairly obvious. How different is CBS from NBC?

No, I don't see any standards being applied to blogs. I see a cacophony of noise for some time to come. Survival of the fittest and the market will determine blog "archetypes" that are developed.

Just as you want to market the HZ style software, it can be easily predicted that software will determine, to some extent, the format of blogging. Few bloggers are also programmers or software designers.

The self-regulating blogging world you describe sounds somewhat like a Wikipedia-world, where folks edit each others comments and remarks and "truth" is determined by those folks who live online and can keep editing viewpoints.

No idea remains in a bubble for very long. If your format for BBS' is successful you can bet you'll see knock-offs of your code start appearing as success breeds copycats.

The major media will surely imitate the blog-based world news idea if it is successful. It would mean developing a larger PR base and reach out to obtain more video. They could probably pay more for video as well. The blog-based news will rely quite substantially on the comradery and loyalty and connections of the global blogging community.