Lots of media outlets, including newspapers, have drunk the blogging Kool-Aid. How is this confluence of old and new media going? New York University’s School of Journalism rates the best of the best in newsroom blogs.

I should give props to the St. Petersburg Times blog menagerie, coming out of my late work/play stomping grounds.

It’s a fairly subjective list, based upon what the NYU judges think a blog should look and feel like. It’s also limited to the 100 largest U.S. dailies (measured by circulation); that’s a reasonable subset, but obviously excludes smaller papers that would seem to be fertile territory for innovative blogging. Still, it’s a reasoned look at why papers should host reporter and reader blogs, and how they should be clearly differentiated from articles and columns.

One thing I didn’t see as a prime use of reporter blogs: Their utility as repositories for extra notes and sidebars that couldn’t/wouldn’t fit into a regular-section article. I find this to be a great tool for letting readers dig deeper into a story, affording a behind-the-scenes look into both the story and the newsgathering process. It’s like the extras you find on a movie DVD: It’s not necessary reading, but perfect for hooking the news junkies. Eric Deggans, the St. Pete Times Media Critic, routinely does this with this blog, most recently to supplement his story about the New Orleans Times-Picayune’s post-Katrina endeavours.

If a newspaper blog did nothing else but this, I’d be satisfied. The notion of remaindered content from the reporter, that didn’t make the newsprint cut but still saw life in digital form, is very appealing to me as the attainment of a more complete newspaper presentation. So I guess my list of the best newspaper blogs would weigh heavily toward this use of the form.