First Draft by Tim Porter

Blurb My Blog

It’s interesting that Rod Dreher, an editorial page writer and columnist for the Dallas Morning News, called blogs “the most exciting thing happening in journalism today” and “the most democratic form of journalism yet devised,” but it’s more exciting to me that the newspaper is going to regularly publish “the best of the blogosphere” in its Sunday Viewpoints section.

The acknowledgement by a major metro newspaper that its relationship with the public is no longer that of lecturer-audience, but is now that of one more voice (albeit one with resources and visibility and journalistic underpinnings) in an ongoing community conversation is a significant step forward toward making the newspaper something readers experience rather than just use.

The News, I believe, was the first daily paper to launch a blog for its editorial pages, and it may become the first to bring the voices of bloggers into its pages. (Are there others?)

Full disclosure: Dreher offered a sampling of blog snippets (bloggets?) and listed First Draft among them.