The House of Representatives has amended the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 to include provisions to protect bloggers from being required to divulge their sources under certain situations in the same way as journalists. Instead of requiring journalists to be tied to a news organization, the bill now defines "journalism" to focus more on the function of the job: "the gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public."(Ars Technica)

I believe blogging has to bee taken seriously. Not because I'm a blogger, but because of the reasons why I am a blogger. I think certain bloggers (not necessary including myself) are journalists.
As my friend pointed out, in a lot of ways people still think about bloggers as hobbyists. They don't know or understand that some are professional bloggers, which is a way of reporting, thus more or less the same as journalism. We report. Fortunately, more and more events invite bloggers as companies start to understand that bloggers reach a much bigger audience than *traditional* press. In other words, the official blabla quoted above has my vote. Give the (pro)bloggers the respect they deserve. They are journalists.