I think this story illustrates one of the more annoying aspects of so many blogs and their "reporting".

Fair to an extent, although most of us don't claim to be reporters. This is, after all, based on a story by the vaunted Associated Press, so it presuming that it was basically accurate is a reasonable starting point.

Unlike most of the MSM, once information comes to light that the basis of our commentary is faulty, most of us will at least quickly and prominently note and cite the contrary evidence, rather than launching a long "investigation" with results waiting until long after the damage is done.

Well actually Steve Verdon, Alex Knapp, Chris Lawrence, Dodd Harris, Robert Prather, Stephen Bainbridge, John Burgess, Richard Gardner, Kate McMillan, Greg Tinti, meself and a few others could possibly form a union.

True! There'd be some serious corporate downsizing were that to occur, however, owing to the paperwork problems having you go from "independent contractors" to "employees" would cause OTB Media.

;)

We get news of something that doesnt seem to make much sense. So what happens? Is there any effort made to actually figure out what this is all about before passing on the story? Or does the initial head-scratch become the story itself - opening the way for all the knees to jerk with snarky commentary on a subject that the commenter knows nothing about.

The latter of course.

UPDATE: Via Triumph (again)

Screw a bloggers union--I am starting the Blog Commenters Local 1!

Its time to battle the oppression we endure from the evil bloggers!

Commenters Unite!

We’re working, too, to figure out a way to get group rates on insurance (right now we’re focusing on liability insurance to protect against libel and copyright violation suits but health insurance isn’t out of the realm of possibility).

I think that is what they were talking about at the Kos convention. The AP reporter seemed to not quite get the point.

Suzie Madrak explains it at her site: http://susiemadrak.com/2007/08/06/12/31/bloggity-blog/

This is one of those cases of a lazy reporter who doesn't understand the blogosphere trying to make a news story out of nothing.

Because they are leftists, they use the "union" terminology, but the goals are identical to what you describe, James, about the Media Bloggers Association.

Given that many bloggers are self-employed, it is useful to form organizations that can help them network and get decent rates on insurance, etc...

What are they going to do… go on strike?

One can only hope.