A philosophical diatribe to kick things off

Here's a question for you: do you actually care what I think?

No, I thought not. Why should you? I am but another person, just like you. This is, of course, a well-known problem with blogging, but it's a bigger problem with journalism.

Look at journalism, and take away reporting for a moment, in any sphere: local and global news, politics, sport, the arts - all reporting of events. Take away analysis, which is just the reporting of details. And take away features, which are essentially the reporting of things people didn't know about before (if news = the new, features = the old; a rounding-up of old news compiled into one spread. Think of a feature - any feature - you have read and consider whether or not it is the reporting of things that have happened). For one minute, just strip away reporting from journalism.

What are you left with? Opinion. My one true love, and my one true burden. Why? Because opinion journalism is a career cul-de-sac.

And yet it penetrates almost every facet of journalism. Reviews - what I thought about this album/film/exhibition/etc. Travel writing - what I thought about this place or that, and more reporting behind it. Interviews - what other people think (and why do we care what they think? Because they're famous, or if not then different from us in some way). Looking at The Guardian today I noticed there's a 'Viewpoint' on the front page. That's some highly-regarded opinion writing.

Obviously there's some opinion in every facet of journalism: even in news reporting, someone has to decide what they think the reader will find interesting. The same thing is important in opinion journalism, not that you could tell by looking at the blogs of many luminaries blogging for the nationals. But in actual press, opinion journalism isn't just in the comment pages - it's everywhere. And now, thanks to Web two-point-oh, it's on the internet.

Yeah, I thought you might have been waiting for me to bring this back to online journalism in some way. With the rise of blogs, citizen journalism is becoming increasingly prevalent and increasingly powerful, and with citizen journalism comes opinion. There are few citizen journalists out there who think their improvised reporting is part of a noble calling to tell the world what is happenning without adding their views on it. Why would they? You've just taken a video - the first globally - of a bus exploding. This is a perfect opportunity to tell the world what you think. They will hear you. Maybe they will listen. Can you stay silent behind that lens, sombrely filming the events? Or do you add a reflectively murmured, "I can't believe it. What has Bush done to our world?"

It's shoddy, it's desperate, and it's the only way. You need the news as fast as possible from whomsoever will give it to you, and the same goes for blogs. Journalists have been reduced to the same level as citizen journalists, publishing blogs to get their views out as quickly as anyone else. It's all part of the same (blogo)sphere. What makes Andrew Marr's opinions more important than that of Crazyfist1991? His journalistic credentials? Quality of writing? Perhaps. But who's to say that will make his blog more widely read?

Thank you for reading this far, if indeed you have (making this sentence something of a paradox). You have done well to negotiate the navel-gazing, the cod philosophy and the seemingly neverending series of rhetorical questions in this post and emerge the other side a weary, confused traveller (blimey, that was pretentious). This has, in fact, been a very poor blog post; for better ones, visit www.weeekspotblog.com [/shameless plug].

Opinion journalism is a dying art - some would say, not an art at all. After all, what talent does an opinion journalist have? Writing his or her opinions? Literally everyone in the world has opinions, so what can the opinion journalist offer the public that they can't offer themselves?

So I have for you one final question: if news and opinion can come from anywhere, who cares what journalists have to say any more?