Recently during a meeting with a newspaper client one of the editors stated that "They don't blog". This rather abrupt statement came from a viewpoint that all blogs are opinionated and personal in nature and violate some of their journalistic ideals. I think this stems not from a lack of a definition of 'blog' but from too many definitions.

On one level you can define a 'blog' as being a personal journal, or perhaps a conversational style of writing. Others might define blogs as being frequently updated web content featuring reader feedback via comments. Both of these definitions are correct, and can overlap.

From a purely technical standpoint you can define a 'blog' as an easy-to-use content management system. In that sense, a blog can be pure news with no opinion. Look at what USAToday does with their On Deadline blog or the Orlando Sentinel with their Crime Blog. In both of these cases the 'blog' is used to quickly post breaking news and receive feedback from the readers.

When you look at it this way, that newspaper just might blog after all :-)