I should remind readers that BlogNashville is not all about partying. The past couple of days have been pretty intense, especially the CARR crash course in working with numbers and spreadsheets (something so new to me it makes my head spin). I learned a lot, and now I need to get the latest version of Microsoft Excel. (This laptop only has an older MS Works spreadsheet, so I can't even practice while I'm here.)

Serious questions abound about blogs and journalism, and they're unsettled, with everyone having a different opinion. In last night's panel, there were two "regular" journalists (Linda Seebach from Denver's Rocky Mountain News and Mike Cutler, news director at NewsChannel 5 in Nashville) two bloggers who were former "regular" journalists (Bill Hobbs and J.D. Lasica), as well as Glenn Reynolds and Liz Garrigan. Despite the obvious differences (and disagreements involving things like pride and turf), there is no fine line, and the membrane is permeable.

I really liked Glenn Reynolds's common sense suggestion that the Big Guys like the New York Times simply take advantage of the wonderful opportunity they have in the blogosphere.

Let the bloggers help do their work for them!

It's such a simple solution, really. A win-win.

More later; I'm late again!

MORE: And here are some hurried pictures....

MORE: A commenter below (Dan Philips) reminded me of a key point Glenn made last night:

the number 1 blog is run by some type of Chinese Sex Slave

MORE: Somehow, I missed noting the name of the blogger sitting between Mike Cutler and Bill Hobbs -- Terry Heaton. His post on Dave Winer is a must read. Excerpt:

Respect doesn't begin with you; it begins with me. It's foolish to go into a discussion expecting to be respected, because the respect (or disrespect) I receive isn't in my control — it's in the control of the rest of the folks in the conversation. The best I can do is show respect myself. If I'm disrespected while showing respect, well, there's not much I can do about that.

Dave Winer can be a real ass, and I'm not the first person to have said that. Self-absorption is what I saw from him in that session. He wasn't so much interested in hearing what others said, because he was constantly interrupting speakers to defend his point-of-view. Was this deliberate baiting for the sake of the session? Only Dave knows that for sure. When he stated as a matter of fact that the economy is in deep trouble, the conservative writers in the crowd chuckled, and this infuriated him. He said that the room was free to disagree with him, but not free to laugh at him. However, by his parental admonitions and rebukes to people in attendance, he was — on a very discernable level — laughing at everybody else.

Dave is a dynamic and intelligent fellow, and I like him a lot. He helped me get this blog going, and the truth is that his role in the creation of blogging deserves respect, regardless of what anybody thinks of his personality or political positions. There would've been no BlogNashville without Dave Winer, and that's the truth.

The blogosphere is a place where disagreement is not only allowed but encouraged, and while all of us old hippies may long for the utopian day when we all "just get along," I'm not so sure that's really necessary.

(He also has good taste in cell phone ring tones, if I may say so....)

UPDATE: Is this evidence that the New York Times might be listening to Glenn Reynolds?

It appears that as the NY Times struggles to figure out how they fit into the changing news landscape, they're realizing that putting up a big wall between their writers and readers probably wasn't helping matters. So, one of the changes they're looking to implement will be a better system for contacting writers of pieces to allow them to better interact with the community they're serving.

Now, let's not get too drastic.