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I've been having conversations online recently with new journalists. They ask me for advice occasionally, it happens - and I've had some positive feedback from the steers I've given them. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised after almost 20 years (next June) in the business, 19 years as a full-timer and almost 15 years (next May) as a freelancer.

So I've had this thought. I'm going to run an online course if the numbers are right.

At this stage I'm just trying to get an idea of the general interest. If I were to run a course in January, to last six weeks, after which you'd know some of the basics of freelance journalism, how to pitch, how not to annoy editors, how to manage your accounts, stuff like that, would you be interested? I'd be charging £75 per lesson or £400 if you ordered all six in advance. There will be assignments, there will be feedback and of course there'll be more detailed information on the course before I ask anyone to hand the cash over.

At the moment I'd like to see how many people would be interested - so if you'd want to give this a go, how about mailing me with 'freelance course' in the subject header and 'yes' in the body text? There is no question of any commitment on either side at the moment I promise - I'm at the feasibility study stage.

Thanks.

Entrepreneur and former Dragon's Den panellist Rachel Elnaugh makes some interesting points about blogging and its impact on her own blog here. Essentially she sees evidence that her blog rather than any press coverage has made an impact on public perceptions of her, and she suggests 'normal' press will get a wake-up call.

Well, yes and no. The Guardian's 'Comment is Free' site is ample evidence that the traditional media does indeed understand how important new media has become. What's going to be even more important, though, are three things about new media and blogs in particular.

1. Responsibility: Many blogs are written by people who are inexperienced writers and who have no training. This can be a good thing because you see their thoughts as unpolished, which can be more raw and genuine - but the laws of libel apply in Cyberspace as much as they do elsewhere. We haven't yet had a big test case in this country. The biggest, probably, in which Mumsnet upset Gina Ford, was settled out of court. But which amateur blogger knows just how far they can go without falling foul of the libel laws?

2. Quality: This brings us neatly to the second issue, which is quality control. There's a lot of dross out there in Blog-land but then there's a lot of dross in journalism too; but has anyone told the bloggers how carefully they need to check their facts before publishing them? Journalists, by training, are inveterate checkers and goodness knows we make enough mistakes. Bloggers, without that background, are prone to repeating anything they hear. Only this morning I saw a blog on the failure of the iPhone: thing is, I was there covering the story for BBC London's breakfast show in Regent Street on Friday morning and I'm telling you people were queueing. Maybe not as many as Apple would have liked but they were there. And has the blogger offered Apple its near-statutory right of reply? Has he hell.

3. Payment: i know, I know, the Internet and blogging in particular is supposed to appeal to the sort of hippie who wouldn't dream of demanding payment for his or her work. Nevertheless, after the initial blogging bubble has subsided you've got to ask what's going to be left. If this is going to continue and people are going to get it right, they've got to find a way to make it viable to continue. This means making it pay. This is likely to mean advertising, and that in turn will mean guaranteeing editorial quality (advertisers won't subsidise something that's unreadable).

It'll be almost like the traditional media all over again.

Media training at a PR company today and I was reminded I was getting older - but for once I didn't mind.

We were discussing the old, old story that happened when the Guardian misheard singer Patti Boulaye offering her support for the Conservatives. She said it was good that young people were in favour of a party; the paper reported that she was speaking in favour of apartheid.

It's a long-dead issue. The thing that appealed to me most, though, was one of the younger trainees having to ask what apartheid actually was. Half of me said, oh no, am I that old? The other half was actually quite pleased - it may be a sign of age, and we shouldn't ignore the lessons of history, but the further away that pernicious regime and its policies gets, the better.