Though much overused, in the case of the erupting war between the Blogosphere and Old Media it is appropriate: PARADIGM SHIFT (PS).
The reason this is important, John, is that one of the distinctions between a PS and other types of change is that there is always a sharp cleavage between the Old guard and the new, and ARGUMENT DOESN'T WORK because the Old never can "get it". They filter all arguments through their Old filter.
The new paradigm just grows, and the old guys just die off, and the cleavage between the two is never bridged. After their generation is gone, their resistance seems just a curiosity.
If I had bothered to respond to Steve Lovelady's e-mail about this column, I would have used the analogy of the Oracle at Delphi. Long after the beliefs of the Greek people had moved on, I'm sure the High Priests at the Temple were continuing to perform their rituals, while wondering why the people weren't coming anymore?
That is a nearly perfect description of Columbia Journalism's future in this matter. And the reason why is as you describe, that they will never get a clue. They will just be confused as the world around them changes and they become irrelevant.
Congressman Billybob
The legacy media were read-only to us, essentially write-only to the "high priests."The vast number of people with motive and (now) opportunity to blog or post on FR inevitably will include some who are more knowledgeable, on practically any given topic, than the journalists are. In the old days those who knew a given topic and were offended at the facile errors and easy assumption of superiority of the journalism were limited to writing indignant letters to the editor which the editor did not have to publish.
Now in FR and the blogs we get to compete on much more even terms with those "high priests" for the opinion of our fellows. Our "letter" can be read by the editor but also by others who read the original piece. On any given topic some, perhaps most, of those who comment may have little of substance to add to the discussion. But on any given topic some of the posters will have real substance to add to the discussion.
The net effect is that the journalist is exposed as "the man behind the curtain" rather than the huge and awe inspiring image. Many journalists find the posture of humility which this situation demands more than a little off-putting. But the more Steve Lovelady and his fellows assume a posture of superiority the more their lack of superiority will come to look like inferiority. The world is changed, and they will just have to get used to it.