I have recently found out about the presence of “pro bono” blogger, Matthew Lee, who has been accepted at the United Nations as part of the press corps — see www.InnerCityPress.com. Lee is part of 200 full-time permanent correspondents at the UN. This brings up the question of what or who exactly is a journalist? In a land of free speech, it becomes very tricky to “rubber stamp” who is allowed to cover the news and, with the ever increasing presence of blogs, to control or censure it. As it is, figuring out the bias of certain newspapers (or TV stations, etc.) is already a fun exercise. On top of worrying about the thoroughness and/or veracity, here we need to consider whether the blogger can become an advocate of one or another camp. And, I can only imagine how President Putin is trying to figure out how to manage (read: subdue) that “individual” press — given how he has been clamping down on the traditional press channels and given the Russian heritage for clandestine writing (see samizdat), one can only imagine the scope of the upcoming struggle.