Did you know that The Michigan Daily has blogs? Lots of them? All accessible through the Daily’s homepage?

My guess: Despite the fact that blogs have permeated the national journalistic ambiance to the point of perhaps becoming the most popular mode of getting information, most readers are probably not familiar with the Daily’s blogs. But they are an integral part of the purpose and product of this newspaper. And I am pleased that an incident a couple of weeks ago concerning a post made on the Fashion blog, The Fashion Voyeur, allows me this chance to discuss this overlooked section of the Daily.

The incident involved a post made on The Fashion Voyeur that was taken by some readers to be unacceptably mean, unprofessional and uncalled-for. I largely disagree with that assessment, but we’ll get to the specifics of that post and its aftermath in a minute.

The Daily’s blogs began about six or seven years ago. Initially, the news, opinion, arts and sports sections each had a blog, but many others have been added since. As I recall, in the early days, our blogs were not very exciting. Experimental and somewhat scattered, they lacked character while Daily staffers worked out the kinks of the blog format.

Eventually, at least some of the blogs took off. The sports blog (The Game) is probably the most popular, and the news blog (The Wire) is perhaps the most essential. But for me it was always the arts blog (The Filter) that was the most interesting. Even aside from my own background as an arts writer for this newspaper, I felt that The Filter, while inconsistent and sometimes badly off-tone, had the character and creativity that is a hallmark of the blog format.

Launched this fall, The Fashion Voyeur embodies a niche previously covered by The Filter, and borrows more than a little of its cheeky declarative voice. I had not read this blog until the apparently flagrant post in question was brought to my attention. Reading some of its posts since then, I find The Fashion Voyeur to be appropriately judgmental and pretentious. Its tone may most readily be defined as “douchy,” but I expect that from a decent fashion commentary blog.

And that brings us to the entry on that blog titled “Spotted: Poshh-turing,” which was posted on Oct. 23. It features a man and woman, both dressed a little too overwhelmingly for me to comprehend. The Fashion Voyeur broke it down for philistines like me, including this descriptive excerpt: “It's possible to look like you're trying too hard while trying to look like you're not trying too hard. See, it's like this person read a few articles on how to wear a tie casually and then replicated GQ's conception of what a cool guy looks like.”

Catty? Yes, but also funny. Mean? Maybe, but not unacceptably so. I just don’t see a problem with it. Let me explain.

I’ve written a handful of columns this term stressing the importance of this newspaper and the seriousness with which Daily staffers must approach their task. But all of that commentary was intended for sections of the newspaper whose job it is to produce excellent, serious news and commentary. However, journalism is a field that encompasses much more than just solid news coverage, considered commentary and in-depth magazine and feature stories. There are other niches in this profession where the purpose varies, and thus the execution should too.

One such niche is arts commentary. This paper has long recognized that good writing on things like film, theater, food and fashion involves tone and style that has no place in, say, a news story. (Indeed, the Daily’s very bylaws allow the arts section special latitude in creatively captioning photos.) None of this is to say that arts writers can use the license of creativity to produce shoddy work: Getting sarcasm, humor and satire right is a huge challenge and most attempts fail. But understanding a difference in purpose and point is important.

It’s a similar situation with blogs: They are different, and readers have to understand that. While there was negative backlash to the apparently offensive post on The Fashion Voyeur, I find most of it missed the point. It makes no sense to criticize the Daily’s journalistic integrity just because a post on the paper’s fashion blog may have been a tad impudent. Many things are perfectly called-for in a fashion commentary blog that would be inappropriate in, say, an editorial.

To those who panned the blog entry in question because it was blithely critical, possibly involved misleading the subjects or was just poorly thought-out: Those are fair, and perhaps even valid, criticisms.