I agree with your point.
Free Republic is a good place and I come here for news. Although, I don’t agree with everything that is written, I go here to be informed.
Sometimes I have gone back to the news channels if the story is breaking, but this website is still looked at.
In two or three minutes on the Internet you can scan the news and decide what to focus on, rather than sit down for an hour and see what the MSM think is important. And on FR, NRO, Breitbart, Media Watch, you can see the stories that the MSM ignore.