“Since anyone can write a Weblog, why is the blogosphere dominated by white males?” (MSNBC/Newsweek) Steven Levy puts this concern in the same frame as the issue of affirmative action in the MSM*, which is on everyone’s minds these days as law professor Susan Estrich takes Michael Kinsley to task for not running more pieces by women and people of color at the LA Times op-ed page. Levy thinks the problem of building more diversity into the weblogging world is one caused by its decentralization. But he never gets beyond grappling with what is essentially the wrong question. Concerns from minority writers that, just as they are gaining some legitimacy on the op-ed pages, their voices are being drowned out on the web pages by white men talking to largely white audiences is only legitimate to the extent that you think weblogging is a form of journalism, which it is not. Weblogging is far more like writing letters to your friends about some of the things that interest you.

*We’re all supposed to know by now that this refers to the “mainstream media”, right?