More Blogging in the Press

Web Scribes Join Political Conventions

Look out Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and Peter Jennings. There's a new crop of reporters on the block, er, balcony. Welcome to "Bloggers' Boulevard," a section of the FleetCenter where independent Web scribes post their musings about the Democratic National Convention on personal Internet sites as events play out on the floor below them.

So-called bloggers are in the hall covering a national political convention live for the first time ever, joining the estimated 15,000 traditional mainstream broadcast and print media staffers chronicling the event.

Democrats accredited about 35 writers of Web logs or "blogs," choosing from more than 200 applications, in an effort to expand the media bullhorn that will amplify the messages of the convention.

I can't decide if the traditional press is taking the blogging seriously or just treating it as a side-show. I tend to favor the latter categorization.

And, why "so-called"?