It seems that BBC Business Editor Robert Peston is himself more controversial than many of the stories he reports; his renown is so great, that he has even become something of a sex symbol.

Probably a power thing – some raw erotic energy that comes from his Zeus-like ability to foretell financial apocalypse.

Peston’s fame, or perhaps infamy, was clearly not lost on Matthew Yeomans last week, as he cited the BBC man’s shrewd manipulation of The Blog. Applause has to be given for Peston’s cunning plan of breaking news on his own page when and how he likes, ensuring him a cosy place at the top of BBC bulletins to the continued relief of infatuated housewives everywhere.

I’m not going to wade in on the debate over his influence on money markets and what not, as if I hear the phrase ‘credit crunch’ many more times I may have to section myself.

No, what concerns me is this notion of blogs, however reputable, being used as news. The possible consequences of this are unsettling.

We know how stories reported through blogging are treated and circulated in a different way to more ‘standard’ news. Whereas traditional reports tend to be copywritten up quite similarly, free from overt opinion and spread in a relatively calm manner, blog pieces don’t adhere to as many rules and get reinterpreted and recycled, like some 21st century Chinese whispers.

The Steve Jobs example strikes again.    

Fortunately, most websurfers still rely on dedicated news sites for concrete info, and episodes like the Steve Jobs incident are usually flagged up as balderdash before they go too far.

But Robert Peston is further blurring the line.

His use of blogging to break big and generally accurate stories lends excessive credibility to blogs in general: that is the danger. It would be wrong to suggest all blogs are inaccurate trash, but by and large blogs equate to one person, no editor, no checks, no balances, and so it follows that they will be less accurate than professional news.

Sure, it’s not much of a threat to people like us who are being taught about these things, but what about those citizens who are only just discovering the blogosphere and web 2.0 in general?

Someone could go on the internet for the first time today, search for financial news, immediately find the blog of the credit crunch poster boy, and be under the rational impression from then on that blogs are trustworthy fountains of knowledge. 

Whether Peston’s is a case of a journalist getting carried away with the new angles of media or simply of a man desperate to be on the telly, the risks are the same. Peston is overstepping the mark by taking news and taking blogs and trying to turn one into the other.

Rather, he and the rest of us should be looking to use them in tandem: using a blog as supporting analysis to a news piece, having journos scour citizen blogs for leads and sources, etc. By making them mutually beneficial without distorting their fundamentals, there can be civil partnership between the two mediums.