The pajamahadeens are digging their own graves (FR Featured)

Toronto Star ^ | Nov. 25, 2004. 01:00 AM | ANTONIA ZERBISIAS

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[Madstrider]

"Ironically, bloggers mostly feed off the work of professional journalists who do the legwork."

I know this has been much mocked, but there is a certain amount of truth here, if people would get over their anti-MSM attitude long enough to admit it.

Understand that most broadcast news (except live footage of hurricanes, etc.) is ripped-off from newspapers and magazines. Ask your local newspaper reporter how often her stories are picked up (without any credit or acknowledgement) by the radio and TV stations.

Look at all the posts on Free Republic that are links to articles from other sources -- AP, Fox, Washington Times, columnists. Where bloggers make a difference usually is in taking facts reported by some media source, doing a little Googling to dig up a fact left out, or maybe adding some "local knowledge," and then "connecting the dots" to make a point that was missing from the original news article.

There's nothing wrong with that. "Real journalists" do the same thing: get a press release, make a couple of phone calls, do a Nexis search, bing-bang-boom, you got a news story. It's not completely original, but that doesn't make it illegitimate.

So it in no way detracts from what bloggers do to say that much of their work is based on reports by MSM. The guys in MSM cannibalize each other's work all the time.