An organization called JTA created a huge flap recently by denouncing the storytelling capabilities of bloggers.

JTA must be one of those acronyms whose letters once stood for words but now is just an acronym; in any case, I could not find out on its Web site what the letters JTA do or did stand for. But here’s how its Web site describes the organization:

JTA is the definitive, trusted global source of breaking news, investigative reporting, in-depth analysis, opinion and features on current events and issues of interest to the Jewish people.

The trouble arose when JTA made this pitch in an e-mailed fundraising letter:

Without a strong JTA, the storytelling will be left to bloggers, twitters, and non-professionals. Is this the best way for our future Jewish stories to be told and recorded?

Oops. As “Dan” on eJewish Philanthropy reported, some 1,500 participants had attended the First Annual International Jewish Bloggers Convention last year, and many were steamed at the JTA pitch.

In an entry headlined, “Jewish Bloggers Are Not the Enemies of Jewish Storytelling,” Esther Kustanowitz at My Urban Kvetch wrote: “Demonizing a group of people who are united only in one characteristic — the technology they use to ensure that their stories are heard — constructs unnecessary barriers between mainstream media and the communications wave of the present.”

“The business of media has changed. Media outlets that raise money by inciting fear of bloggers… these are not the outlets that are going to survive.” wrote the author of the blog Leah in Chicago/Accidentally Jewish.

Yup. Newspapers are dying, and even the president of the United States is calling on bloggers in news conferences. Blogging is not always flawless journalism, but bloggers surely have a significant role in telling the stories of our culture.

Right?

(It should be noted that JTA apologized for the letter. Dan Sieradski wrote: “The characterization of bloggers and Twitterers as ‘non-professional’ and unreliable was not only counterproductive but arguably false. Worse yet, by seemingly attacking the blogosphere and Twittersphere, JTA has turned itself into a straw man in the battle between old and new media.”)