Darren of Common Sense Gamer wants to know whether bloggers are press. I tend towards no. It is not as if a blog couldn't be as good as press, or even better. But a blog lacks mechanisms to guarantee anything. There is no guarantee of veracity, objectivity, style, type of content, not even continued existence. While journalists not always meet journalistic standards, at least some of them have been held responsible for those and fired. Who is going to fire me if I post something which would be totally unacceptable in any newspaper?
Having said that, being unpredictable and subjective can be an advantage for bloggers. The opinions and language you read in a blog will generally be more raw than the refined and edited style of real press. If you read a game review print magazine, you need to read between the lines and decode that 70% score, while in a blog you'll read that this game sucks and are being told exactly why. Just compare the blog coverage and the press coverage of Tabula Rasa, and tell me which one you think is "better".
But not having an editor, not being required to differentiate between news and opinion, and research being optional really disqualifies blogs from the press category. For some kind of news press is simply better suited than any blog. So I don't see myself being issued a press pass for anything anytime soon.
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