WASHINGTON (AFP) -Internet &#34blogs&#34 get a boost from the big search engines, which make the personal journals more accessible and move them toward mainstream journalism.

Yahoo this month said it would include blogs on all its news searches, saying it would give readers more access to &#34grassroots journalism.&#34

Previously, search leader Google said it launched an engine tuned to scouring blog entries for fresh news and views.

While blogs have long been frowned upon by traditional media as amateurish, analysts say the public is increasingly looking to blogs for a fresh view on news.

Blogs, short for Web logs, are also being boosted by other factors.

Traditional media like the Washington Post are including blogs on their own sites. And mainstream journalism has received a black eye from recent incidents such as a plagiarism scandal and a CBS News television investigative report during the 2004 election campaign that ended up being discredited by — blogs.

Yet blogs lost credibility, too, during the 2004 election when some reported premature exit poll results pointing to a victory by challenger John Kerry over President George W. Bush.

Michael Cornfield, a senior research consultant at the Pew Internet and American Life Project, said blogs are useful even if they may not be on par with traditional journalism.

&#34Blogs are discussion forms, and I don”t see any reason why they can”t be indexed&#34 so Internet users can search them, Cornfield said.

&#34Discussion is an important part of the democratic process.&#34

Although Cornfield acknowledged a difference between blogs and mainstream news, he said the lines are being blurred.

&#34I have always regarded the New York Times as the paper of record and assumed what is in New York Times is true,&#34 he said. &#34But I don”t trust them as much as I used to.&#34

Julie Moos, managing editor at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said putting blogs and mainstream news in the same category, as Yahoo has done, may be useful as long as blogs are clearly labeled as such.

&#34Different readers are able to discriminate among the types of content,&#34 she said. &#34For some people, putting search results from blogs with search results from other news sources could be very helpful… but other people may not distinguish the difference, and it might be more confusing.&#34

Moos said blogs may or may not have the same journalistic norms as news organizations.

&#34In blogs outside of traditional news organizations, some have stated standards and some don”t,&#34 she said.

&#34I think labeling is key, because people don”t always know the sources of information… Just like in a newspaper we would label something an editorial or analysis, it”s helpful for someone to be able to find the same kinds of labels&#34 for blogs, Moos added.

A recent survey by comScore Networks found nearly 50 million Americans, or about 30 percent of the total US Internet population, visited blogs in the first quarter of 2005.

But another report by the Web hosting firm Hostway found only 28 percent believe that blogs are as or more credible than newspaper articles.

But Hostway vice president John Lee said that the credibility of blogs is much higher among younger audiences who may be more cynical about traditional media.

&#34People under 30 found blogs to be just as credible as traditional media,&#34 Lee said.

The Hostway survey found however that 52 percent said bloggers should benefit from the same constitutional liberties and protections as professional journalists.

Pew analyst Cornfield said blogs and traditional news can co-exist even if they are different.

Reading a blog &#34is more like being in a tavern than being in a newsroom,&#34 he said.

But he added, &#34Most bloggers would say we need the news organizations. It”s symbiotic. News feeds on discussion and discussion feeds on news.&#34