Blogs: a terrible one-way street channel of communication

Hans Kullin has generously blogged his notes from a debate on 'citizen journalism – threat or opportunity', hosted by the Swedish journalist union, and once again one of those issues where parts of the Swedish press is seriously confused raised its ugly (or ridiculous) head: the controversy over Sweden's blogging foreign minister, who has been likened to Hugo Chavez for using a 'one-way street' channel of communication.

Kullin reports: Pnina Yavari Molin from the new media section of Swedish tabloid Expressen "was worried that journalists are losing their 'monopoly' as opinion leaders and told of an example from Göteborgs-Posten where Sweden's foreign minister Carl Bildt refused to answer questions from a journalist and instead wrote a comment to the article on the site [his blog]."

I guess that is somewhat reminiscent of the recent debate about A-list bloggers who'd rather blog answers to journalists' question, or conduct the interviews via email. Should disintermediation be the sole privilege of bloggers?