After the final coffee of the day, it's time for the session titled Blogs and the Media (perhaps the one I've most been looking forward to).

Up steps Peter Bale, online editorial director at The Times newspaper, which he says has just increased its unique users from 1.5m to 8m over an 18-month period (62m in March).

Peter boasts that Times Online puts blogging "at the heart of its editorial operation" using Six Apart's software. Talking of the paper's blogging US correspondent, he says "there isn't an editor between him and the blog, but there is him between the reader and comments" - it's good to hear newspaper blogs have escaped from the conventional newsdesk copy flow processes.

Peter notes that noted blogger Andrew Sullivan has now struck a deal to have his blog carried by Time magazine's website, but says "I would like to think our staff writers can find a family still in [our brand]. This requires [the ceding of some] control ... to have an open dialogue." Other Times contributors who love blogging are David Aranovitch and Paris correspondent Charles Bremner.

"The biggest risk for us is brand damage," Peter adds. "These kinds of people [like George Galloway] will sue the pants of us at a moment's notice." Read - when letting all manner of contributors write freely, watch out.

"One of the nice things about it politically is, giving Times writers immediately brings them into being active, interested participants in the web. We have to take much greater risks with what we do on the web and then kill them if they dont' work. It's much cheaper to launch a new section ont he web than it is in the paper."

1613 - "Blogging is about not pretending to be ethical, but actually being ethical." Has second panellist AgoraVox
's Guillaume Champeau just pulled out the best quote of the day?



16.18 - Bernhard Warner says the divide between citizenry and media has disappeared, but asks will the business of journalism change? He says that many news stories nowadays are supported by footage or reports captured by ordinary citizens.

16.20 - Time senior editor James Ledbetter says the development of the internet has shattered forever the notion that the magazine can soley be a weekly title. True enough, Time.com now publishes stories pretty much every day.

James says changing what journalists do and the way they do it in response to the emergence of blogs is absolutely essential. He says TV is "particularly vulnerable" to this new environment as "there is very little evidence for the effectiveness of television advertising".

It's great to be here, hearing about this revolution. The virtually Marxist transfer of production power from producer to consumer is producing a wild levelling of the playing field thanks to the web; I'm proud of it.

16.37 - In the Q&A, Peter Bale answers a questioner by saying 25% of Times Online content is now commissioned for online-only, not just shovelware; he says comment is what sets the Times apart from BBC News, Reuters and so on - "you've got to get searing comment that gets people thinking, even if they hate it". "I'm sure that CommentIsFree is going to lead to some very interesting case law that will be of great use to us all. It will be a matter of moments that The Guardian has to do something similar to the Washington Post and pull down some comments".

Guillaume Champeau of AgoraVox, the French citizen journalism website, says his site is part-funded by Google Adwords.

16.51 - Ledbetter tries to puncture panic that the media advertising market is collapsing. UK women's weeklies are starting up at a rate of knots, meaning ad spend is anything but thin, "except in terms of weight loss", he says. [During the dot.com boom in particular], the internet was the biggest gift to radio in the same way that Amazon is the greatest gift to book publishing, he adds.

16.55 - Asked by an audience member if the PR people should try pushing their insidious messages to journalists via blogs, Bernhard is "highly sceptical about companies that give products to bloggers for reviews, for example". "Frankly I don't trust bloggers." Sounds like Bernhard is thinking of Hugh Macleod's efforts to promote Stormhoek wine to the blogger community. Check that out. Peter, though, says he would love to read a blog by a corporate PR person as they often know their stuff inside-out.