Eamonn Fitzgerald's Rainy Day

It's a kind of a hackneyed headline, but why not? The thing is that most of the major news gathering organizations are responding to the blogging boom by adding diary-like sections to their online coverage. Take the BBC. Rather than used the "blog" word, however, and be seen as following the herd, the venerable British news institution prefers the word "log". As a result, it calls its new section "Reporters' Log" and uses the related verb in its introduction: "On this page BBC News Online reporters log their impressions and personal experiences as they watch events unfold."

And the presentation? Correspondents such as Paul Wood (Baghdad), Tim Franks (British Army HQ in Northern Kuwait), Heba Saleh (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia), Matthew Price (Ark Royal, Gulf of Arabia), Caroline Hawley (Amman, Jordan), Andrew North (US marine base Kuwait), and Caroline Wyatt (Northern Kuwaiti desert) add regular snippets stamped with location and time. A typical posting:

Northern Kuwaiti desert :: Caroline Wyatt :: 0900 GMT

"Today the main battle for everyone here in the Kuwaiti desert has been against the elements. A massive sandstorm is blowing clouds of fine dust across military camps and restricting vision to about 100 yards."

It's all a bit lacking in personality but, given the amazing quality of the BBC website, I expect the log section to find its feet within the week.

The Financial Times has ramped up coverage of the crisis in the Gulf by adding its own special sections, including one devoted to reporters' chronologies, but it also opts to avoid the "blog" word. "Diaries" is used instead. A typical introduction:

Kurdish diary: Days of hope and apprehension

"Those living in the Kurdish-held enclave - the only part of Iraq where opinion can be freely expressed - ask repeatedly why the French and the Germans are not supporting the United States, writes Gareth Smyth."

By the way, access to these diaries requires a subscription to FT.com.

The New Republic has gone with "War Diary" for describing the daily comments of Iraqi exile and dissident, Kanan Makiya. The author of the Democratic Principles Working Group report for the State Department's Future of Iraq Project is eloquent and (insider?) informed.

FOCUS, the German newsweekly, favours the "diary" word as well. "Tagebuch aus der Krisenregion" is how it titles Christian Liebig's postings from the Kuwaiti desert, where he's with the US Third Infantry Division.

From Baghdad itself, there is the dramatic, real-time blog of an Iraqi called Raed. Many doubt his authenticity, but others claim he's genuine. There's no certainty. An entry:

:: Thursday, March 20, 2003 ::

"there is still nothing happening im baghdad we can only hear distant expolsions and there still is no all clear siren. someone in the BBC said that the state radio has been overtaken by US broadcast, that didn't happen the 3 state broadcasters still operate.

Kevin Sites, a CNN correspondent, is providing text, image and audio-blogging from Iraq and Iran. A "first-person account of a solo journalist's life on the front lines of war" is how he describes his work and it is very professional indeed. Freelance journalists wishing to make an impression in newsrooms around the world would do well to look and learn.

Meanwhile, Christopher Allbritton's Back to Iraq 2.0 is busy collecting donations to send the blogger into the field.

Diarist of the day: Virginia Woolf, 20 March 1926

"But what is to become of all these diaries, I asked myself yesterday. If I died, what would Leo make of them? He would be disinclined to burn them; he could not publish them. Well, he should make up a book from them, I think; and then burn the body. I daresay there is a little book in them; if the scraps and scratching were straightened out a little bit. God knows. This is dictated by a slight melancholia, which comes upon me sometimes now and makes me think I am old; I am ugly. I am repeating things. Yet, as far as I know, as a writer I am only now writing out my mind. "