[sam_paine]

if the internet is making the old media obsolete, ....Why can’t we just let the internet take over?

Because 'the internet' is not going to take over when all the local/indy sites go down, AP/Reuters will be taking over:

News Agency Dominance in International News on the Internet

The [internet] aggregators offer the bizarre spectacle of readers offered dozens of links to entirely irrelevant media outlets for every story. For a breaking story in China, for example, readers may be offered links to the likes of the Arizona Republic, KRQE Television (New Mexico), and the Calgary Sun.

Most of these local and regional news outlets, of course, will be providing the same news agency coverage and offer readers no unique coverage of the story. The intention seems merely to offer the “4,500 news sources updated continuously,” as Google news promises.

This leaves us with a picture of an online news world (in the English language) where only four organisations do extensive international reporting (Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC) a few others do some international reporting (CNN, MSN, New York Times, Guardian and a few other large newspaper and broadcasters), and most do no original international reporting.

[Milhous]

IIRC you know about my own proclivity for obtaining news direct from newsmakers. Keeping with your theme of international news and randomly choosing Somali Piracy as topic yields an AFRICOM News story about NATO navies conducting anti-piracy duties. Granted that some people greet stories sourced by the US Mil with skepticism. OTOH I greet aforementioned skeptical people with my own skepticism.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

if the internet is making the old media obsolete, ....Why can’t we just let the internet take over?

Because 'the internet' is not going to take over when all the local/indy sites go down, AP/Reuters will be taking over

But the trouble with that thesis is that the AP depended on a monopoly of the use of the telegraph to transmit news. The Internet subverts that monopoly, allowing anyone anywhere in the world (a Michael Yon in Iraq, for example) to compete with the AP.

Of course we will have to be skeptical of such reports - just as we have to be skeptical of the Associated Press or of Reuters.

The wisest and most cautious of us all frequently gives credit to stories which he himself is afterwards both ashamed and astonished that he could possibly think of believing . . .

It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity,
and they very seldom teach it enough.   - Adam Smith

That is why we come to FR - to pool our skepticism.