Like other reporters, White House correspondents are being drawn into blogging and videography. For some of the more traditional journalists, the better verb might be “dragged.”

The National Journal’s Alexis Simendinger, herself a regular in the Brady Press Briefing Room, describes her workplace as “one of the last protected habitats for inverted-pyramid mainstream journalism” which is now “tiptoeing” in the direction of blogs and “writing that entertains and mixes analysis with news.”

And it’s not just written products. Uncharacteristically armed with a video camera, Ken Herman from Cox Newspapers recently gave his readers the insider’s view on what it’s like to be a White House pool reporter on Air Force One. (It’s boring.)

The White House press corps includes some of America’s most seasoned journalists, many of whom doubt the wisdom of ditching newspaper articles in favor of “bite-sized appetizers of information” that “are supposed to be more Cheez Whiz than escargot” as Simendinger describes.

The Houston Chronicle’s Julie Mason, one of the first to make the transition to blogging, albeit reluctantly, remembers being relentlessly mocked by her colleagues.

“It was superficial and trivial … we were trend monkeys, and it was the dumbing-down of everything we hold dear. I had worries about the same things,” she said. Over time, the freedom of writing informally and the direct interactions with her readers gave her a more favorable view of the blogosphere.

The remaining holdouts eventually might have to surrender. Blogs are attracting new visitors to newspaper Web sites and, as the Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan once asked, “Who nowadays is honestly reading a newspaper article from beginning to end?” The Chicago Tribune’s Mark Silva, as quoted in Simendinger’s article, might be right about the 21st-century news business. “The news cycle is just not sufficient anymore. You can’t put something out in the morning paper and expect it to be competitive.”

What do you think? Are blogs the death knell for real journalism or is there room for peaceful coexistence?

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