At the end of last night’s weird Berkman blogging meeting, recorded by ABC News for some upcoming episode of Nightline, the producer expressed surprise that anyone would blog about the presence of the cameras in the meeting. There were some very smart replies by bloggers there — Go Lisa, who concluded “Yes, my life is interesting to me” — but the producer’s comment indicated to me that we failed to make the point that blogging isn’t a sub-species of journalism. Of course we’re blogging the event because it’s something in our lives that we find interesting: We’re not in front of the cameras every day and it’s pretty damn fascinating to see how the mere presence of a camera creates a distortion field. But is “Cameras record meeting” news? Of course not; it’s a condition for there being news. (Hmm. I think I’m saying what Brendan Greeley of PRX said last night.)

By the way, to read a surprisingly sympathetic view of the effect of blogging on journalism, see Peggy “Reagan’s Speechwriter” Noonan’s take on it. Wow. [Thanks, Dave, for the link.]

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