Vaughn Ververs, the new blogger at CBS, replied to some points I raised on objectivity, opinions, personal biases, and independence in my interview with him, and then quoted many of you, dear commenters, with responses in turn. Good on him.

The emphasis here is not to express our personal views. If that makes this less a “blog” than some would expect, then so be it. It is worth remembering that this conversation was started based on what Jeff Jarvis and his readers considered important, not necessarily what we considered important. It is exactly this sort of dialogue we will seek to facilitate.

As a group purporting to provide a level of transparency at CBS News, our biases (such as they are) are a legitimate topic of discussion. To that end, the biographies posted here, especially the long version of my own [link here], are intended to demonstrate what some of those biases might be. As with most things, anyone is free to make assumptions based on the information available but we urge caution in doing so. You know what happens when you assume …

The blog gets a bit wordy, as that snippet does at the end. (Imagine me saying that: a case of the pot calling the kettle metal, eh?).

He also addressed my snark about being accompanied by a handler:

Jarvis, and some readers, also made much of the fact that I showed up for our talk accompanied by a “flak” from the CBS News PR office. I confess that the arrangement was slightly awkward for me as well in the sense that it hurt efforts to demonstrate independence from the news division.

A reporter asked me to critique Public Eye but I said it’s just too soon. What blog finds its voice and raison d’etre in a day and a half? I’ll give it more time.

But I will complain that they don’t have an RSS feed, though other stuff at CBS does. Friendly, neighborly tip: Better get one before Winer comes calling!

A second personal announcement: I am now a regular, every-other-week columnist for Media Guardian.

I’m delighted and honored to be there because I’ve long admired the Guardian’s media section and because I think the Guardian is the best-written newspaper in the world (in English, at least). And note that I’m there not thanks to my resume but thanks to my blog. In fact, they say they want me to write for print on themes I’ve explored here — how shall we say this? — for screen.

It’s also cool to be in the first edition of the new, medium-sized, Berliner-format Guardian.

Today’s column reiterates and polishes up some of what I’ve written about news media and Katrina. The Reader’s Digest version, just the lead and the kicker:

In less than a day, Hurricane Katrina rendered worthless the printing presses and broadcast towers that made big media big. And that will change news forever….

But journalism’s rediscovered courage and newly discovered fallibility are, I will contend, less profound changes than the one brought on by the flooding of presses and the toppling of towers. For at that moment, news was freed from the shackles of media. Now he who controls distribution no longer controls news. And news is no longer shaped by the pipe that carries it. That is what Katrina did to the news.

Rex Hammock, a magazine publisher and fellow blogger at Rexblog.com, wrote that the Times-Picayune and nola.com deserve a Pulitzer for their news blogs. I second that. It doesn’t matter whether the work came rolling off a press or a blog: it is journalism of the highest calibre and greatest service. The Pulitzer committee would serve journalism well by separating the content from the container, the medium from the message, and recognising great reporting wherever and however and from whomever it comes, with or without a press.