Thanks, Mark, for your sympathetic appreciation of my blog here. I would nevertheless prefer not to describe what I do as "reblogging" which is a neologism designed to make activities in the blogosphere sound innocent. I regard the word as disingenuous.
As you have seen, I am a lifelong journalist and as such regard what I do as traditional information gathering and dissemination, taken not exclusively from blogs – in fact I aggregate highlights mainly from professional sources, always hotlinked, and blended with my own reporting on the front-page blog, which links when possible to the more substantial pieces of original writing within many inside pages (which is why I chose the versatile Cutline theme).
Throughout, however, I assiduously credit every writer, photographer and illustrator referred to. I have agreed deals with individuals and offer appropriate watermarking of photos, and as my site is essentially a platform for a chapter of social history, specifically the 1980s (with a topical edge), I would rather have use of most relevant images, even if they must be watermarked.
What's sad is that, even so, I remain reluctant to post most of my own archive photos because of the ease with which people already drag-and-drop. But with Tumblr, Facebook and now WP encouraging people to duplicate other people's work at the press of a button, I am now unlikely to post my back catalogue anywhere publicly viewable on the web. I simply don't understand how US copyright law allows blatant theft. And I don't see how bloggers posting my stuff on their own blogs does anything to "drive traffic" to my blog, as Matt fatuously declares.
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