I've heard talk that blogs are the way of the future - the new "mainstraeam", that will replace newspapers and conventional news programming.
The one thing that sets blogs apart from any mainstream, or professional, media, is their anonyminity.
A blog is a name out of nowhere, a stream of data from the other side of your cable connection. It could be that it is the confidential outlet of a Washington insider, slipping you facts that he dares not attach to his name.
It can just as easily be some guy in his parent's basement, spreading the contents of his imagination all over the screen.
There is no accountability, no way to check the facts. And no way to get a retraction, or to shut down a bald-faced liar.
Without such checks and balances, blogs will never be anything more - can't be anything more - than a personalized Letter to the Editor.