You say tomato, I say a red fruit-like thing that is not the same thing

An interesting exchange on the Newsnight news blog (the distinction is, apparently, now significant), as opposed to the other news published/broadcast by the national entity we fund.

Bank balance sheets become focus of scrutiny

Look at 13, 14 & 15 and then the reply from a rather defensive reporter in 16... and wonder about the mindsets at work.

'...if this were "reporting" then you would have a point. As it is, it is blogging. It is not meant to be award winning journalism.

And I am not reporting "unsubstantiated gossip" - I am reporting a...

Not sure I can get my head around this, not just as a possible official insight into national media broadcasting/publishing editorial definitions, but also consistency...:

'...if this were "reporting" then you would have a point[ie: not reporting]. As it is, it is blogging.... I am reporting [or...] a...'

So... is it reporting... or blogging, and what then is the difference as it still appears in print, for public consumption, from a BBC reporter on a BBC organ of news sharing?

I am to in future ignore all I read on these pages?

Addendum: I have had a reply:

21. At 11:15pm on 29 Jul 2008, PaulMasonOfNewsnight wrote:
In on-screen reporting you can pursue bar stool intelligence and try to stand it up as fact. With blogging, I think it's legitimate to explain what people are saying if it's relevant and plausible and doesn't libel anybody, and especially when as "sentiment" it is a material factor in events. If people are beginning to act on an idea it becomes relevant even if not true. I'm trying to help people understand the scale of private concern in the financial sector, is all.

I could ask what the heck he is trying to say, as it is almost Rumsfeld-Clintonian in not clarifying, at least to my satisfaction, how onscreen is different to blogging when it is from an official, national media reporter, and how he in nay case seems to have contradicted himself on this distinction on one sentence anyway.

I think it best to leave that masterpiece of doublespeak as its own epitaph. Then again...