So-so SPJ article on blogging and journalism (with one great line)

An article in the Society for Professional Journalists' Quill magazine on blogging covers well-known territory for anyone who has been paying attention for the last couple of years. But writer Patrick Beeson did distill the relationship between blogging and journalism rather accurately and succintly:

A blog still amounts to a form, in this case a Web site, rather than a discipline, as journalism is.

It's clear to me that all four combinations of blogs and journalism are valid:
1. Bloggers who practice journalism
2. Bloggers who don't practice journalism
3. Journalists with a blog
4. Journalists without a blog

I believe that bloggers who practice journalism can signal their intent by adopting Cyberjournalist.net's Bloggers' Code of Ethics. I'm not saying that all journalists abide by a code of ethics, but I am saying that good ones do. To establish credibility, bloggers should hold themselves to the highest standards they can find. The code is a step down that road.