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They say that the pen is mightier than the sword and now some say that blogs can be mightier than the big media. Neither of the statements is entirely true but both contain a point worth considering.

Over the last few months we have had many conversations with journalists/writers and discovered that there are recurring themes and questions asked by this particular profession about blogs and the blogosphere. In the meantime, a debate about journalism and blogging is raging (at times) in the blogosphere…

It seemed a good idea to us to gather a few journalists who may want to learn about blogs and show them how they work and why perhaps they should care. As things move fast in the blogosphere, we would like to do a few practical hour-long blogging sessions before Christmas, starting Friday 17th, then Monday 20th December and Tuesday 21st December.

All sorts are welcome:

• Those who feel that they should be looking into blogs and would like to have a chance to ask some questions, try basic blogging tools and see RSS syndication at work.
• Those who already blog themselves or read blogs or are on the verge of blogging, to get started and get some tips from veteran bloggers.
• Those who are just interested in the internet - the technological and social aspects of blogging - and see it merely as one of the many evolving online phenomena.
• And especially those who think that blogging may just be the best thing since sliced bread and will become ardent bloggers in no time.

The aim is for you to leave with a live and functioning (and simple) blog set up for you, as well as an RSS reader to manage your online and blog sources via news feeds. A laptop to connect to our wireless network would be useful to bring along. If this is not possible or convenient, we will find an alternative way to get you set up here.

There will be only 4-5 people per session, and it will be first come, first served basis. The series of ‘boot camps’ will culminate in a blogging evening with/for journalists planned by Six Apart, the Big Blog Company and other ‘blog players’ in the second half on January. This will be a larger affair, so for individual attention use the opportunity to ask all the awkward questions about blogging well before then.

For more information on these sessions, click here.

Journalist bloggers are no news in the US. And last week, French journalism made a huge leap into the blogosphere with Six Apart introducing Le Monde journalists and readers to blogs. There is already a handful of journalist bloggers in the UK too and they are listed below.

(Updated 14th December) UK journalist blogs (if you know of any others, please let us know)

Andrew Brown, Guardian, Helmintholog

Ben Hammersley

Caroline Westbrook

Charles Arthur, technology editor at The Independent

Clive Davis, The Times

David Smith, economics editor, Sunday Times

Dot journalism

Graham Holliday, Noodlepie

Guy Clapperton, freelance journalist and editor

Ian Stobie, freelance journalist

James Bartholomew, The Welfare State We Are In

Jeremy Wagstaff, Loose Wire

Jonathan Oatis, This is My London

Journalistic.co.uk - the UK digital journalism blog

Mike Butcher, mbites

Neil McIntosh, Complete Tosh, Guardian Newsblog (and others)

Oliver Kamm, columnist for The Times

Sandy Starr, of Spiked online

Simon Waldman

Stephen Pollard, freelance

Stuart Hughes of Beyond Northern Iraq

Suw Charman, Strange Attractor (Corante blog) and Chocolate & Vodka

These are our little helpers for this occasion:
Suw Charman is an established blogger who write about blogs, social software and related issues on the Corante.com blog, Strange Attractor. Along with Stowe Boyd and Greg Narain, she is working on Corante’s seminar series, True Voice: The Business of Blogging. A freelance journalist, Suw has written for The Guardian and the BBC as well as specialist publications such as Design In-Flight.

Alistair Shrimpton is the UK representative of Six Apart Ltd, the company behind the Movable Type publishing system and the TypePad personal weblogging service. Six Apart creates tools that enable hundreds of thousands of individuals, organizations and corporations to participate in the Web’s full potential by publishing their ideas on the Internet with simple, yet powerful software and services. Users of Six Apart publishing systems include The Guardian, the BBC and Le Monde.