ALEX JONES writes that press credentials don’t turn bloggers into “journalists.” True enough. Of course, neither does a paycheck from the New York Times or NPR.

UPDATE: Related thoughts here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Joe Gandelman has a well-thought-out and even-tempered commentary on Jones’s oped.

MORE: Matt Welch’s commentary is less even-tempered, but fun to read. And right.

STILL MORE: It’s worth reading this post (“The next generation of journalists will start as bloggers”) from Ernest Miller, too.

MORE STILL: Jeff Jarvis: “What, as if major media aren’t the No. 1 juicy target for manipulation? Jeesh. Wake up and smell the breath of the PR guy and the political spinmeister whispering in your ear, Alex.”

AND YET MORE: Patrick Belton: “Alex Jones of the Kennedy School of Government manages to do precisely what he accuses blogs of: making vituperative arguments driven by emotion rather than fact, and marked by remarkable lack of engagement with facts or evidence, or an understanding of the subject matter at hand. . . . Blogging, as I’ve experienced it, is characterised by polite running conversations, backed up by evidence. I have to respond to friends on my left such as Kevin Drum and Matt Yglesias, and ones to my right such as the Winds of Change. Maureen Dowd doesn’t.”