This article is written by Shobhan Saxena of TimesofIndia according to whom "the blogosphere is getting cramped with half-wits, religious maniacs, failed writers, sociopaths and cold-blooded killers". According to Shobhan bloggers in general are failed writers this is how shoban describes bloggers "They are interesting people. They think that they have something to say. They want to be read and heard and seen. But their aspiration is blocked by the obnoxious monster called the Editor and their high-voltage facts mixed with slam-dunk fiction, with a lot of typos and commas and semi-colons in wrong places, go down a drain called the Editorial Process. So they turn to blogging and take refuge under a series of posts on a web page in the form of a diary, with hypertext links to other such diaries. The bloggers love to attack those they hate: from McDonald’s to Starbucks to Karl Marx to Mandal to Germaine Greer to the colleague at the next work station. Blogs are an online stream of consciousness written by people who believe that they are under orders from someone to change the world."
Well this is not where it stops according to Shobhan from Indiatimes, Indian Bloggers are the worst! Here is his take on the Indian Blogospere "And no one can beat Indian bloggers when it comes to self-obsessed preaching, gossiping and bitching. The Indian blog which has made the most news, carries nothing but office gossip of the two leading TV channels. Called warfornews, it leaves nothing to imagination, not even the office memos which are also posted on the blog. They are like a lynch mob who will not spare you if you dare to cross them. If this is a new form of journalism then it’ll make sense only to those who live in a post-modern bubble."
Thats not all he goes on and on appreciating bloggers.. here is more appreciation for bloggers.. "Bloggers claim in their hifalutin tones that they want to give a voice to the voiceless and replace the newspapers with their journalism. It sounds good, but look at the way they are doing this. Their vision is apocalyptic and their language is acidic. It’s good fun, but this is no journalism. Learning and mastering good journalism is tough. You learn it in libraries, on flooded streets, in front of a rioting mob, in the middle of crossfire between a militia and a military, in war trenches, in the corridors of power and in the hamlets of deprivation. Sometimes, a reporter walks for miles in an area ravaged by a tsunami to get one quote from the man hanging on to a tree for a week. Bloggers don’t have to worry about such inane things. They can learn history and politics from google. They can get their facts from newspapers and then slam them with their half-baked opinions."..
And its not only half baked opinions that Mr.Shobhan has a problem with he thinks that bloggers make money for promoting here is what he says "But the smart people in the corporate world have realised the uses of these mercenaries. They are looking for bloggers who are interested in being paid. Eager to make quick bucks, many have already boarded the train of paid bloggers, blowing away their claims of citizen-generated media, free from the restrictions of top-down "old media". Since there is no accountability and no audit, we don’t really know which blogger is being paid by whom to spin what kind of "truth" on the web."
Wow wasn’t that a really fair article? Not at all biased was it! 
Mr Shoban manages to write one paragraph where he remotely appreciates blogs here is his appreciation "But we must give the devil its due. There are bloggers who are doing good work. From the war-zones of Iraq and Lebanon to the red-light streets of Sao Paulo, there have been excellent stories missed by mainstream media. On the BBC, Mukhtaran Mai’s blog is a good effort. This amateur output is raw but written with emotions. It has clicked with people in the West as there is some distrust of large media networks, particularly television, that fails to distinguish between a bike accident on the road and a big war devastating a country."
But he concludes his article with the following "In the West, blogs have become an outlet for the rage that people are no longer allowed to express in the actual world. But, in India, with a booming and vibrant media, journalism without an editorial process is a dangerous trend. It’s easy to dismiss journalism as literature in a hurry, but blogging is just organised gossip."
So here is my "half-witted" analysis (Pardon me Mr.Shobhan i have to voice my opinion coz im a half witted maniac who has become a sociopath staying with other cold blooded killers!)
Hmmm.. lovely article Mr.Shobhan.. But I have a few questions Mr.Shobhan… Why didn’t you write about a military operation? or a rioting mob? or a tsunami? why write about us bloggers? how are we such a huge danger to the humanity? or are we a danger to your profession? According to you we are "half-wits".. So why write about us? Also you said that bloggers get their facts from newspapers and then slam them with their half-baked opinions! Umm.. how many blogs did you read and famous bloggers did you meet before writing this article? Please a statistic would help.. Also you question the credibility of blogs by saying that no one know which blogger is being paid for what? Nice question.. May i know how Bombay Times i.e. the Page 3 of your own company TimesofIndia works? They obviously feature celebrities and others only because they love journalism and not because these celebs pay you to feature them! Obviously TimesofIndia never features biased news for money!! Does it?.. Im a half-witted blogger so I dont know.. Also if blogs and blogging and bloggers are so dangerous can you please clarify why Indiatimes has a blogging platform o3.indiatimes.com? And that also for free!!! Oh my god! What a crime!
Here is an advice i think you should thank that there are blogs around because if tomorrow you get fired.. I mean obviously that wont happen ever because you are so fair in your journalism and who would fire a journalist who covers military operations.. may be you can take to blogging and make a living (You have to be half-witted to survive..).. hopefully then you wont think that blogs and bloggers are rubbish..
And this is for you dear reader.. If you are reading WATblog then you are reading what half-witted sociopaths write who could be cold blooded murderers too! Are you scared?? BOO!..lol 
Did some blogger take away Mr. Shobhan's Job, or some blogger been spreading some real "stuff" about this guy?
Haha funny article.. Hes made a nice big fool of himself with his half baked knowledge.
Did Mr.Shoban loose a fortune coz of a blogger ? :-S
sarcasm seems to be a sharp quality of ur blog.. good job.. (lol) tho shobhan was extremely harsh with his words ur article seemed to make so much more sense than the faff he spoke abt..
journalism, as he mentions, is abt research and facts and opinions then i think blogs (like WATblog esp) have more of those virtues than, ur rightly mentioned, page 3 ‘journalists’ !!!.. tho thts jus 1 side of teh complete argument.. anyway gr8 blog keep going..!!
May be this blog http://udupipressvictim.wordpress.com which bravely exposed role of TOI reporter in a temple scam caught TOI's goat! No wonder journalists are running helter skelter now that citizen journalism is growing leaps and bounds.
"Sometimes, a reporter walks for miles in an area ravaged by a tsunami to get one quote from the man hanging on to a tree for a week." Guess some of us bloggers are those hanging men, tired of journos coming to get quotes and then walking away to get the next quote!
hey, stop it folks, some stupid guy writes something and bloggers are up in arms ? Grow Up !!
Indian bloggers made fools of themselves sometime back with "Unstinted" support to "harassed" bloggers of the IIPM episode.
Lets not have a repeat of that stupidity
Hi donthecat.. I completely agree with you.. infact one of India's most popular blogger said that its better not to give such things importance.. My whole point of putting this article was to just show how this guy was contradicting himself.. Also this is primarily a print article in Timesof India which is read by millions which was posted online.. Im not trying to imply that what he wrote was utter rubbish.. I feel ev ryone has a point of view so he has his.. But.. I surely feel the language and the tone and the generalisation he made against all bloggers national and international is an insult to not only the bloggers but the sensibilities of the readers who read their blogs.. and thats why this article
You gotta agree to one thing Mr Shobhan said. Blogs voice opinions on news. Bloggers dont go out and collect news. Journalism and blogging are 2 different things.
I liked Mr. Shobhan's article. It made a lot of sense.
FUD: Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) is a sales or marketing strategy of disseminating negative and vague information on a competitor's product. It is a deadly and toxic mixture of lies, half-truths and distortions targeted at unsuspecting public; typically carried out by those whose product is not good enough to win the market share on its merit.
FUD is exactly what Times of India seems to be indulging in.
At first, it looks like the writer is outraged, at the paradigm shift that is taking place. He looks hurt at the fact that the bloggers are publishing and getting the readership, without going through the grind he underwent. And of course, he is very angry with google which has given seemingly unfair advantage to bloggers.
But then as you go through the article the motives become clearer, you see a elements of a distinct fud campaign. Vague negative information aimed at maligning the competition i.e. blogs, disaparaging language used while referring to bloggers ( as if bloggers were a homogenous entity).
And the last paragraph loudly says this is a FUD campaign – it says
"But the smart people in the corporate world have realised the uses of these mercenaries. They are looking for bloggers who are interested in being paid. "
Saying that the bloggers can be bribed …
Come-on, Shobhan/Times of India, bloggers are not newspaper journalists who can be bribed to give a biased opinion
- We all know why the product that gets rave reviews has an advertisement in the in the magazine section of the newspaper. Probably a decision that is influenced by commercial interests of your sales team and that too at the Editor level.
- We know role of PR agencies in ?influencing? your print journalists to ensure right coverage for their clients.
If this sort of an article can pass through the Editor, either he is not doing his job properly or it is Times of India as an organization, sees serious threat from Blogs and is launching a FUD campaign to counter it.
Regards
Gautam Dua
http://duag.blogspot.com/
ps : I am surprised why he did not mention auto correct feature of MS Word, on helping these bloggers get their punctuations and spellings right.