Somebody's out there blogging about surgery. You going to let him operate on you?

I might if he's a surgeon, and surprise, surprise, a lot of people blogging on surgery are professional medical people. Same for physicists and physics. Milbloggers are, by definition, military people.

You have some very strange ideas about what a "blogger" is. It's no more of a description of the qualifications of who's doing the blogging than the term "writer" is. Take them on their own merits, or lack thereof.

The idea that simply holding a job with a news organization makes one competent is laughable. "Trained" my hind end. By that theory, Katie Couric is a genius.

Main Entry: jour·nal·ism
Function: noun

1 a : the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media b : the public press c : an academic study concerned with the collection and editing of news or the management of a news medium

2 a : writing designed for publication in a newspaper or magazine b : writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation c : writing designed to appeal to current popular taste or public interest.

Benjamin Franklin bought out a small press and put out his own newspaper. If he were alive today, he'd be pounding a keyboard to produce his witty work. Was he a journalist?

This is not just an academic argument. At some point, it's going to be an issue whether or not internet news is covered in the same way by the First Amendment as newspapers are.