Al Neuharth on Blogs: 'Interesting Bullshit'

You can accuse Al Neuharth of ruining newspapers, but don't accuse him of not loving them enough. At 83, he still reads five or six papers a day, starting, of course, with the one he founded 25 years ago this week: USA Today.

After that, Neuharth -- speaking yesterday at a celebratory anniversary luncheon co-hosted by publisher Craig Moon and editor Ken Paulson -- said he reads The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and then, depending on whether he's at his home in New York or the one in Florida, the New York Daily News and Post, or Florida Today and the Orlando Sentinel.

He also reads blogs -- "more than I'd care to mention" -- but doesn't have a particularly high regard for them. "Most of them, when I read them, I say, 'This is a lot of interesting bullshit,'" he says. "But what bothers me about bloggers is there's a growing sentiment that maybe the government should exercise some control over them. I'm totally opposed to that." He likens today's bloggers to the pamphleteers whose incendiary writing helped bring about the American Revolution.

That said, he has no interest in joining their ranks. "I use the internet to retrieve information, not to peddle information or gossip."

(Photo courtesy of USA Today, and thanks to Jon Friedman for the assist.)