Random headline (second) from Editors Weblog: "Singapore: New freesheet involves readers".

Lord, I needed to know that.

RG's blog: 2nd headline: "A classic example of newspaper spin". Looks at UK coverage of Ken Loach's film.

There's something to be said for (a) locality (b) experience. Editors Weblog doesn't have it, from where I'm sitting.

(And when will you move to something that approves comments more quickly than by hand? This is the machine age, after all.)

But then again, he doesn't anywhere say it's journalism, does he? It's just a handy blog about the media. If you don't like it, you don't have to read it.

Some people find an excuse to be grumpy about anything.

Oh right - editors from all around the world don't have the worldly wisdom that Greenslade has to offer? Give me a break.

Anyways, vastly superior I said, but it's all relative.

And Kim, you are right, no claims that it is journalism (and to be fair Mr G's analysis is a different kettle of fish) but good blogging is not mere aggregation - in the "machine age" you can automate that yourself, you don't need "locality" or "experience".

PS: Chas I thought you were a troll using this blog in the pathetic hope of driving some traffic back to your own blog. I have added you to the list of "trusted" commenters as I can always rely on you to express a contrary opinion...

Update - seems there is a bug with the comment approval system. Sorry Chas, will have to continue hand publishing your gems until the techies can take a look...

Is there any added value to this aggregation because it's done by a journalist? No.

The value is not added because it's done by a journalist, but that it's being done at all. Until Greenslade, nobody has attempted to run a comprehensive journalism aggregation service for the 90-odd percent of users who don't actually have the skills needed to go the "DIY route".
RSS and even Google News are still very much specialist tools.

We still have nothing like Romenesko in the UK. But Greenslade is a start.

The praise for Greenslade's Loach piece is misplaced. As I pointed out on his blog, the same story appeared on Media Guardian's monkey a full 24 hours earlier...there's on-the-ball analysis for you...

Chuck L - so what's Editors Weblog then?

Google News 'a specialist tool' - are you serious? Go to news.google.com, search for journalism, when you get the results click the RSS feed logo to add it to your reader.

Not that difficult is it? You might as well say search engines are specialist tools...

I actually think the Greenslade blog is quite good. It's a blog as a list of interesting things seen on the web, like BoingBoing - which some say is the original version of the form, before it became another word for a personal newspaper.

Must take a while to put it together, though... Interesting to see if he can keep it up.

Google News 'a specialist tool' - are you serious?

Absolutely.

Just because it's obvious to you and me doesn't mean most people are using Google News and RSS etc to do DIY aggregation. So long as these are not mainstream behaviours, blogs that aggregate content provide a valuable service.

Editor's Weblog is a great blog, but a more UK-centric journalism aggregator is something we should be welcoming.

As for this not being journalism, I'm not sure what you're on about.

Aggregation and digesting other pubilications' stories on a particular subject has always been part of journalism. Not the most glamourous, sure, but an important part, if only to keep up with the competition and the development of stories.

But who, outside the media, is going to be interested in Mr G's aggregation? The point is that any journalist worth their salt should already have the tools to access and aggregate these news sources.

You are also wrong about the UK-centric part. Mr G's blog mostly contains links to stories from all over the world.

The point about journalism is that it adds value. Aside from the analysis, there is no added value here. If there is no value added, what's the point?

But thanks for the link to the Times article - very interesting.

"The point about journalism is that it adds value. Aside from the analysis, there is no added value here."

So there is added value, and it's the analysis, you're saying.

Plus, the value added is in what he leaves *out* of the RSS stream from choosing "journalism" on GNews.

"But who, outside the media, is going to be interested in Mr G's aggregation?"

Umm... do you think it's aimed at people in the media?

And do you think many journalists actually use RSS? In fact, do you think many real people of any kind use it? If you look at stats for RSS use at major British news websites, you'll find they are very low indeed. It's a geek tool, and it's not breaking through into mainstream, at least for reading news headlines.