Would need to run a check that the cms_blogs module exists, and that the current user has access to do.

I am wary though that someone may add a blog post as news (as this is a superset of the blogs interface) then wonder where it has disappeared to. In explaining that, it might be worse than the initial problem described.

In the 'Simplification' thread Chris asked that my suggestion that News and Blogs be separated into two distinct modules be added to the tracker.

Since Bob has started this one, I thought it might be easier to expand on his original request to separate these items in the Content Management area by adding to it.

This is Chris' wording: "Add config option to specify that blog posts should not show up in the cms_news module."

On discussion in the live chat we decided the best approach is to allow the separate blogs option be disabled by default, and have that be the case in v11 by default.
As discussed above, I think hiding blog posts from news would create as much confusion as it solves.