Andrea Harris of Ye Olde Blogge has come up with yet another analogy illustrating the relationship between old journalists and bloggers:

. . . I'd say that blogs are like any number of musical styles, all either independent (like garage bands) or underfunded (like most symphony orchestras these days from what I hear). . . . . As for journalism, the closest musical comparison is Top 40 MOR "lite" rock.

That inspires me to come up with one more:

journalism : blogging :: processed cheese : Zabar's cheese

By 'Zabar's cheese' I mean the 200+ varieties sold at Zabar's in New York City. Other large cities will have similar sources.

Parallels are for the most part obvious:

1. There are dozens of varieties of processed cheese and old journalism, but hundreds of varieties of Zabar's cheese and thousands of blogs.
2. It hardly matters which processed cheese or newspaper you consume: they all taste pretty much the same.
3. In each case there are broad overall differences in flavor and texture between the two sides. Blogs tend to be more libertarian/conservative than old journalism, while Zabar's cheeses are on the average stronger-flavored (and smellier) than Velveeta or Cheez Whiz. Zabar's cheeses also cover a much wider range of texture, from the very hard to the very squishy.
4. Processed cheese and old journalism are full of artificial additives. A dollop of sinistric oxide here, a squirt of rallic acid there: all to "retard spoilage", as they say -- the list is endless. Like Zabar's cheese -- and perhaps even more so -- blogs are made of all natural ingredients.
5. Journalism and processed cheese are produced in huge soulless factories by teams of cog-like humans working together to produce a lowest-common-denominator product, then shipped out to consumers on 18-wheelers. Blogs and good cheeses are cottage industries (sometimes literally so), often family businesses, and usually made from a secret recipe. The cheese recipes have often been handed down from one generation to the next for a century or more. Each cheese (or blog) is the product of one or two individual minds with strong ideas about what makes a good blog (or cheese). This means that processed cheese is inherently socialist, while Zabar's cheese is libertarian-conservative, even when (as is often the case) it's produced by Frenchmen and consumed by Upper West Side lefties.
6. Journalism and processed cheese are huge money-makers for their parent corporations. It is possible to make a modest living from supplying a niche market with cheese or bloggage, but no one will ever get rich that way. Manufacturers are motivated less by money than by pride in their own workmanship and the praise of satisfied customers. That is what inspires them to the single-minded pursuit of the perfect cheese (or blog).
7. Many uninformed consumers can't really tell the difference, but once you start reading blogs and eating good cheese, you will never go back. That is because . . .
8. Old journalism, like cellophane-wrapped factory-processed homogenized cheese food, is boring.

After Friday's Blogapalooza, I intend to stop by Zabar's on Saturday and stock up on cheeses. While I'm there, I will see whether they carry Velveeta and Cheez Whiz. Somehow I doubt it.