Alex Jones in the LA Times rants about bloggers getting press credentials to cover the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Matt Welch, a journalist and blogger who is attending, responds:

There are two types of reporting that even the most nakedly partisan political bloggers routinely engage in: eyewitness testimony, and press review-style research. Both of which, and particularly the former, will add value to the conventions, which are largely made-for-TV fabrications that can benefit from more you-are-there-behind-the-curtain reportage. Also, it can be very useful to read descriptions by people whose politics are on their sleeve & whose takes on things you trust from intimate personal experience.

Jones writes:

"With the status conferred by convention credentials, blogging has arrived as an engaging, important new player in the information carnival."

Matt responds:

It takes the issuance of credentials by a friggin' political party to confer status on people who have built huge audiences from scratch and invigorated the mediasphere by writing for free? What a warped view of journalism.

Jones equates the blogger's attributes with those of "a blustering know-it-all in a bar." Well, he has that right. We're all meeting for drinks Sunday night in Cambridge. Matt, see you then. [link via Instapundit.]