Are Bloggers Considered Journalists?

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/10/bloggers_might_be_excluded_fro.html

The link above leads to an article which poses two pretty big questions in the field of media. Are Bloggers Journalists? And where is the line drawn for the ban on bloggers being involved in state government meetings?

Oregon decided to ban al bloggers from state government meetings. There reasoning was that they are not journalists, and if the line is not drawn at bloggers, then the meetings no longer become private and anybody who calls themselves a blogger would be allow in to and report on the meeting.

Bloggers are just as, if not more, professional than the rest of the mainstream journalists out there. Whether they admit it or not, a mainstream journalist's articles always come through as biased because of the publication they work for. Depending on the political opinion of the publication, they most often lean noticeably in one direction or another. The independent blogger will most often report with no bias or they will be up front about it. After brief research, there is no question that Democracy Now! leans left and that is often how they report. There is no attempt to cover up any bias as there is in mainstream media.

As for bloggers being banned from reporting on state government meetings, that is absurd. That is just another attempt for the government to exclude media that won't necessarily report in their favor. They are using the age-old excuse that bloggers are not journalists to protect their reputation as an upstanding government.