Are citizen-journalists just amateurs?

Nicholas Lemann, in the current New Yorker, takes issue with many bloggers' conviction that they are doing the job the mainstream media are too complacent or arrogant to do. It's an entertaining piece, and in the online version you can of course visit the sites he mentions...and see what some blogger-journalists think of the article....

Don't Bomb Us - Al Jazeera Blogs
A very interesting development: After release of the news that George Bush was thinking of bombing Al Jazeera's headqurters in Qatar, staff have responded by creating Don't Bomb Us - A blog by Al Jazeera Staffers. I doubt that blogs can actually confuse cruise missiles, but at least it will draw more attention to the difficulties of life in the Middle East media....