Check out this bit of research from Corante. It seems the AP is syndicating some sarcastic commentary and calling it a blog.

AP have obviously and spectacularly failed to understand what ’syndication’ means in the blog sense or what a blog actually is. And what’s worse, the entries I’ve read so far are just not very good. Whilst it’s true that I have read drivel less interesting in my years as a blogger, this poor copy of Wonkette is written by someone who is supposedly a professional writer and it really should be better.

AP have a long, long way to go before they can claim membership of the blogosphere. Firstly, they need a blog. Secondly, they need a blogger who can write interesting and compelling posts. Thirdly, they need to engage with the blogosphere directly, on a first person basis, not try to latch on to the buzz through the intermediaries of news sites like Yahoo.

Hat tip: Wizbang.

More mockery from Common Sense Journalism.

The story on Yahoo about its Bad Language blog made me almost spit up my lunch.

Some excerpts:

If you’re confused on what a smog — as our granny called it — is or how it fits into The Associated Press’ infrastructure, think of it like this: The AP is the all-knowing yet crotchety robe-clad Sanford and we’re his wiseass but totally lovable Son, hocking junk you could probably live without.

From inside our cardboard box at the AP World Headquarters, we’ll do stuff like fill you in on Bad News, tell you about the latest Bad Habits, ask stupid questions in Bad Interviews, bitch during Bad Reviews, chase celebrities on Bad Trips and present anything and everything we deem Just Plain Bad.

No one is safe from BL. (That’s right. We got initials.)

Oohhh, it’s got initials.

This from the AP, whose corporate culture makes the New York Times look like a scandal sheet, makes a proctologists convention look like a swinging singles weekend.

I admire what Tom Curley is trying to do at the venerable news organization to bring it into the multimedia times — and to save it from becoming irrelevant. I admire the people I worked with and still know there. They do a helluva job.

But AP as hip? I have some initials, too: B.S.