I‘m amused by media pundits and opinion makers who emerge from their ivory towers occasionally to condemn bloggers.

They harrumph: They’re amateurs. They have no checks and balances. Their audience is small. They’ll go away as the fad fades.

Many otherwise intelligent newspaper editors and commenters view blogs the same way as crusty Andy Rooney. In 2005, when asked about the CBS Public Eye blog and its policy of transparency, Rooney spouted: “I have never read the CBS Public Eye blog so I have no opinion. I’m trying to find out what blog means. It seems vastly overrated as a communications tool.”

For Rooney and other cave dwellers, a blog is a World Wide Web log – you know, like the journal kept by Captain James Kirk aboard the starship Enterprise in the old “Star Trek” series. For some, a blog is a diary. For others, it’s a means to comment on politics, religion and the news. For me, it’s an opportunity to have my own publication online and build a community of regional bloggers, commenters and “blurkers” (blog term for individuals who read but don’t post).

Happily, Editor Steve Smith and other top editors of The Spokesman- Review don’t share Rooney’s outdated views. As a result, I’m experiencing interactive journalism as few other professional newsmen. From my corner office in Coeur d’Alene’s North Idaho bureau, I interact with dozens of commenters and fellow bloggers every weekday and sometimes on weekends as part of my 3-year-old Huckleberries Online blog. Meanwhile, thousands of others from coast to coast and even in Europe tune in to see what the HBO gang says about the day’s news, the weather and everything in between, including local movers and shakers.

“There is now one less reason to make assumptions about what our constituents want, when all you have to do is ask it (at HBO) and you’ll pretty much find out,” said John Austin, an economic development expert who comments regularly and participates in the blog’s weekday cutline contest.

This is how journalism should be – people learning from each other and forming opinions after intense debate, not a group of professionals with a briefcase full of media awards filtering all the news that fits and trying to mold viewers or readers to see things their way.

I started the HBO blog (originally known as No Holds Barred and then Hot Potatoes) on Feb. 16, 2004, to vent my support for George Bush as he successfully ran for re-election. I was transformed by it.

Approached properly, a blog with an active comment section that’s open to all invites freewheeling feedback. Sometimes, that’s good. It can be intimidating. If you don’t think so, try having an argument with someone about one of your pet causes – abortion, capital punishment, the best burger joint in town – with hundreds of unknown people blurking in cyberspace who often toss in their two cents. That’s why, I suspect, journalists shy away from this emerging medium. Most of us don’t want readers and news sources to have direct access to us 24/7. We want to dictate the terms of the relationship.

Due to space limitations, we decide, for example, how many letters to the editor that you can write in a month. How many words you can use. Which topics are verboten. Who gets to write commentaries. How many letters can be written on a controversial subject. Where the writer must live to have a letter printed. In the blogosphere, topics are almost as unlimited as space, although extremely long comments are still annoying.

In cyber world, you can’t hide from readers behind telephones, editors and rules.

You can use a pseudonym, however – a practice generally eschewed by the “dead-tree media.”

At HBO, you’ll meet Coeur d’Alene Councilman Mike Kennedy, County Clerk Dan English (Dan of the County), city planner Mary Souza, county planner Cheri Howell and a cast of characters with colorful pseudonyms: Stickman, Bent, Unbearable Bob, MamaJD, Jane Q. Citizen, Inspector Gadget, OrangeTV, Toadman. These HBOers don’t wait for the news to appear on their doorstep. Or for the paper to publish their letters to the editor when space is available. They chew on the news as it happens online. They suggest topics (threads). They break news. They respond to blog promptings. They debate one another.

They don’t need the mainstream media to interact. Nor do the citizen bloggers who inhabit the North Idaho blogosphere, now 42 and counting. On a daily basis, Family Phil, Dogwalk Musings, Slight Detour, JeanC’s Cat House and Shooting Society, Notes on a Napkin and the other North Idaho bloggers provide personal observations, gossip and news about their communities, from Bonners Ferry to Moscow, from Kellogg to Hauser, from Bayview to Coeur d’Alene.

Their news and views are unfiltered. They are self-edited. They are the heart and voice of the people. They are the future.