An Enemy or Two?

I may have made some enemies today. At the Out of the Frying Pan gabfest in Melbourne I was outspoken about my views that the quality of food blogs generally is very very poor.
The thing that alarms me about Web 2.0 (as the session for which I was a panellist was titled), is that it is removing a layer of quality control in the media that may never be restored. The proliferation of average or worse blogs (on any subject, not just food) will inevitably contribute to a dumbing-down and diminuition of content and writing quality across the board.
There is a reason that newspapers, magazines and publishing companies have commissioning editors and rewrite editors and copy/line/sub and check editors and not one of the exceptionally talented and published food writers that I know would argue that a good editor will take a piece of writing — be it a piece of investigative journalism, a profile, an essay, an opinion piece, a review, a recipe — and make it better. Nor would they argue that a good editor is almost always essential to their process.
I fear that the scattering of the ad-dollar will eventually mean that traditional media companies will no longer be able to afford to maintain the internal editing structures and processes that are the foundations of quality. The strongest voices will emerge, but they may be the loudest, not the best. The old empty vessels make the most noise thing ...
I'd encourage the people who seemed to disagree with my views today to spend a few months reading The New Yorker magazine, or feature articles from The Wall Street Journal, or Esquire, to start to get an understanding of good writing; of its tautness, its melody and its substance. (For that matter, I would also  encourage them to look at the photographs in Saveur, in Food Illustrated, in Gourmet Traveller.) It's not easy. It's not as simple as signing up with Blogger or Typepad.
Of course I have no issue with anyone, everyone, having a blog for any reason they choose. But, as someone who has been employed solidly for nearly two decades as a writer and editor on major publications in London, Hong Kong and in Australia, the presumption of some bloggers, the protestations of some bloggers, that their voice is as valid or as interesting or as high-quality as that of many of my colleagues in the print media is insufferable. Whatever happened to modesty and self-reflection for heaven's sake?
My flight is being called now... I'm flying to a mysterious location where I can't be tracked down and belted with a rolling pin ... but finally, I learnt one other extraordinary thing today: everyone seems to be giving up booze... my good friend David Thompson looks like a supermodel and is going to the gym, good grief; Necia Wilden was rueful as she told me that she's finally come to terms with the fact that women simply don't metabolise alcohol as well as men; John Lethlean has become a serious contender for the Tour de France... what, I ask, is the world coming to?
As for me. I'm on Day 14 of my new, alcohol-free existence. I don't even feel like a drink. Pass the mineral water please.