Access Davos

Filled with self-styled straight shooters who claim to be beholden to no one, the blogosphere has long positioned itself as an antidote to the so-called access journalism racking the mainstream media, most infamously during the run-up to the Iraq War and, more recently, in the run-up to the financial crisis. Because they rely heavily on high-level, establishment sources for their stories, the argument goes, mainstream journos -- think Judith Miller -- must censor their own reporting or risk losing access to the machers in the corridors of power. The blogosphere, with its emphasis on commentary, analysis and citizen journalism, claims to be unfettered by such restraints. After all, people don't visit blogs to read worked-over quotes by a CEO or a government official.

Against that backdrop, it's pretty weird to witness the growing army of bloggers who now flock to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the ne plus ultra of access journalism. Bloggy new-media types like Arianna Huffington and Jeff Jarvis have been schlepping to Switzerland for years, and they have more recently been joined by financial bloggers, including Business Insider's Henry Blodget and Reuters' Felix Salmon. Then there are the big media outlets including The New York Times, Time Inc. and CNBC, which conduct interviews with bigwig attendees from the mountaintop.

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