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I look at the MSM as the "operating system" and the new media are the applications. It cannot and won't go away entirely.

Unfortunately the OS has lots of bugs.

The new media cannot fully trust the services of the OS but without it where would the majority of the new media be? A few new media applications have taken over a lot of the work that the OS is suppose to do; but most new media applications still depend upon links to the MSM -- the links include multiple sources until "the rest of the story" is found.

Through the efforts of the new media we finally have a free press again. Not since the days of multiple newspapers in most cities have we had a free press IMO -- a time before TV.

Besides bugs the OS also has myriad viruses (liberal biases), worms (MSM employees who "want to make a difference"), trojans (activists posing as "reporters"), and just plain lazy dolts.

Long live the the new media!

BTW, I first accessed WorldNetDaily about ten years ago. Mr. Farah and his wife were running WND from their home in the Sacramento area if I remember correctly. I felt compelled to email the WND web site to tell them that they had a winner. Mr. Farah responded with a nice reply with a little info about his efforts.

I look at the MSM as the "operating system" and the new media are the applications. [As such the MSM] cannot and won't go away entirely.

IMHO not so, but it is a thought-provoking attempt.
More fundamentally, the OS is the Constitution and Society at large is the "hardware" it runs on. "The MSM" - I prefer to call it "Objective Journalism^TM" and emphasize its singular number since it is not internally inconsistent, and if you have read one of its organs, you've read them all - is just one way that it receives in information.
Drudge is an example of an input conduit. I do not assert that Drudge is 100% correct - but then, journalists who claim objectivity for themselves (and for those who agree with themselves) are not correct all the time either. In fact they are heavily biased by the fact that they can take their own influence for granted, as long as they stick together to promote themselves and denigrate anyone who would compete with them without joining their consensus.
Free Republic is an application which runs, no so much on its (admittedly crucial) hardware/software, as on and for FReepers. FReepers who find articles of interest, and post them - and Freepers who read, analyze, and critique those articles and other Freepers' responses to them (including, importantly, the mods). But ultimately the FReepers and lurkers who read the threads decide - each for himself/herself - what is interesting and what is trivial, what is sensible and what is nonsense.
The value of FR is tempered by the ever-present possibility of deception by its anonymous posters - but that is also a strength, since that leads its readers to employ their own critical faculties. FReepers do not take things at face value, as Objective Journalism^TM counts on people doing.