Nick Leamon - the Dean of the Columbia School of Journalism - came out swinging with a barbed criticism of Bloggers in the New Yorker last week titled "Journalism without Journalists."

While the article itself is worth a read, his core points were -

- Bloggers Don't create much original content
-They're not professionals
- They're adding clutter and noise

Leamon is the Dean of an extraordinary institution, one that I have a very long history with. Columbia has in my mind always attracted terrific students and an extraordinary faculty. And students who arrive to get an accelerated Masters Degree in Journalism are far from dilettantes - they are by and large individuals with a driving passion to explore the world, expose injustice, and make change.

Nick leads and institution of thought leaders and passionate professionals.

But the entire "Don't Try This At Home" argument is deeply flawed and comes more from the Registrar's office than the classroom. The attempt to create an "us and them dichotomy" between "Journalists" and "Amateur Bloggers" discounts both the natural root of storytelling and the drivers that are roiling the old world rules of conventional media creation and distribution.

Here are - in my mind - the changes agents of storytelling.

TRUST.

It no longer exists. The paternalistic, authoritarian, 'voice of god' era of Journalism is over. Good riddens. Blind trust, like religious extremists, or hard line political thinkers, replaces intellectual exploration with thoughtless acquiesces. A hungry, curious, critical populous is far more likely to form its own ideas than a slack-jawed tv news coach potato. This should be good news for Columbia, as complex and noisy environment invites clarity.

BARRIERS.

Columbia should poll it's students. How many of them read blogs? How many of them write for blogs (or have their own). How many of them agree with Leamon that Blogs are a dangerous force that creates a fuzzy line between amateurs and professionals?

AUTHORITY.

Individuals trust in institutions is eroding. A recent poll says fully one third of American's think that our Government had something to do with 9/11. This erosion of trust extends to Newspapers, Television Networks, and Radio Networks. It's worth pointing out that this erosion of trust at a time of unparalleled consolidation and corporatization of media. As media outlets shift from having local voices to having large company priorities, it's harder and harder to feel like big media doesn't have something on it's mind other than truth telling. Blogger (!) Fard Johnmar has a fascinating post about the similarities between the Journalist vs. Blogger debate and the current debate raging within the medical community. Johnmar points out that while some doctors appreciate 'patient partners' who come in armed with data and questions. Interesting that both Journalists and Doctors have in the past described their roles as"Godlike."

Johnmar points out that some Doctors see their patients as partners, while others as passive 'clients'. I wonder if the same can be said of Journalists?

Leamon's thesis is simply all the buzz around the emerging worlds of blogging and citizen journalism don't match up to the professional or quality standards of official "Journalists." This raises the question - "What is a professional Journalist?" Well, let's hope that Leamon doesn't require a professional to have a degree in Journalism. For one thing, it would be wildly self serving. But more importantly virtually ever significant Journalist of our generation is operating without a 'license' if that's what you call a diploma from a "J" school. (in fact most major editors and publishers would tell you they find a Journalism degree to be pointless).

The simple fact is that Journalism, unlike medicine or even cosmetology, requires no license, and has a wide ranging set of standards and philosophies that can hardly be categorized or even defined. Is Rolling Stone journalism? What about Car and Driver? what about Cosmo? How about "Waste Water Treatment News". Or, for that matter Fox News. Fair and Balanced? But Leamon doesn't take aim at Fox News... instead he takes issue with Backfence and OhMyNews.

Local news is perhaps the place where citizen journalism can have the most positive impact. Because currently there is a huge gap where local radio, newspaper, and even TV used to ply their trade. Currently, local news as it used to exist is no more. In my college town i watched it happen, as a once active local paper was absorbed - downsized - merged and finally vanished. Today the masthead remains, but it is for all intents and purposes a penny-saver.

The most pointed rebuke of Leamon's article comes from Jeff Jarvis who Leamon takes issue with in his piece. Jarvis is one of the leading proponents of the emergence of internet journalism.

While Jarvis' response deserves to be read in its entirely, to me the fact that Leamon spills so much ink on what is wrong with blogging, while offering his students (and potential students) of one of the world most prestigious journalism schools no vision or path forward is troubling. Assuming if you will for a moment that the state of journalism is without fundamental issues, and blogging is an annoyance that should be brushed away - how does Leamon square his point of view with the class of 2008, who will likely arrive on his campus mid-august with Laptops, internet connections, and a blog reader chock full of links to a wide array of publications and voices. Will he confiscate the laptops? Probably not. Will he scold students who blog? (If memory serves it was a student blogger that broke the 'embargo' when Al Gore was teaching at Columbia and reported Gores public comments despite a warning that they were 'off the record').

We are living at a moment in time when our Government lies to us with impunity. Where the search for WMD's is as pretext to a war - but then never discovered. Where a former gay porn start propagandists is issued White House Press credentials. Where 1/3 of the American People believe that the Government was involved in 9/11.

And Leamon's battle cry is that only writers who work for established news organizations should be entitled to call themselves "Journalists."

If our Democracy is under siege... Journalists should be armed to the teeth to defend it. If the Columbia Journalism School thinks the biggest issue facing the graduating class of 2006 is blogging - then he aught to examine more closely the attacks on the basic freedoms that allow Journalism to be practiced at all.