I’ve said it many times, many ways, including in this blog: Every journalist should blog.

I’ve said it for completely selfish reasons. I want print journalists to GET the web. I want them to understand how the web is different. I want to cure them of their tone deafness to the conversation going on around them.

If you blog in the way blogging is meant to be done, you’ll realize these benefits.

The more journalists who get the web, the better our chance, as an industry, at survival.

So, my reasons, you see, are really selfish, because I want to survive.

Scott Karp makes a very good case for another reason you should blog: To save your own skin. He also offers some good tips on getting started.

UPDATE: In comments, Angela Grant points us to an opposing view.

While journalists have lots to gain from blogging, there’s also the fact that a lot of them suck without an editor bringing out the best.

Well, yes. But blogging is a very sink-or-swim ocean. Either you make it or you get drowned with the rest of the guppies, and journalists need to learn that lesson, too. In a distributed media world, you can’t afford to hide behind your editor.

I’m sure I’ve never been as popular of a blogger as I might because A) I’m not a very good copy editor and I make too many mistakes I don’t catch; B) I’m sure I’ve put up a few too many lame posts that could have been improved or trashed by an editor. That said, I’ve learned far more about the new media world because of blogging. These are lessons available in no a book nor taught by any teacher. Whatever embarrassment I may have caused myself has been a relatively small price to pay for all I’ve gained.