Nice post, MBH. As an ex-journalist, I have pretty strong feelings about the whining from the MSM institutions about how much we'll miss them when they're gone. The information-to-disinformation ratio is pretty weak all-round, and the information is (or would be) pretty much available without them. That said, I don't think this whole debate should be framed in terms of opinion-vs-fact in content among different blogger or media sources. It's about Information Dissemination: how much information gets disseminated and how widely. Personally I'm much better informed now that I avoid the MSM filter - I've got better presentation, aggregation of the data and better analysis.

On your more formal points: I don't think the definition of 'opinion' is "the preference for one event over another". It is my Opinion that we will have a prolonged recession. That may or may not turn out to be fact, but it is independent of my preferences on the matter (maybe I have shorted the Dow index...). If I'm right it is a fact, if I'm wrong it's not. There are things I believe which I regard as self-evident - such as 'the alleged practices at Gitmo amounted to torture'. That is, if they did the things that have been widely reported, then that is torture. It is not something I wonder about, not something I'm going to get into a debate about. It is a Settled opinion. The fact that it is an opinion not shared by the MSM leads me to the opinion that they are utterly disconnected from reality and not really interested in disseminating information.

Even if all bloggers were simply expressing an opinion, are MSM journos doing any better by repackaging and regurgitating information produced and fed to them to them by governments and corporations?

I think this is a good piece, but I think you're wrong. I'll have to resort to a personal anecdote to explain why.

When I was at my college paper, I was sports editor for a semester. During that time, because I was heartbroken and trying to be funny, I also wrote a column about gender relations, from a male perspective (I had a female counterpart to offer the counterpoint). Because of this, I got a reputation -- maybe a bit deserved, maybe not -- as s bit of a misogynist. But the question popped up as to whether, because of those public views, I was giving women's sports enough coverage.

The facts were that I had given women's sports more coverage than previous editors, and that I had covered those beats myself and understood them. The facts were that my best reporters and writers were assigned to them, and women's sports often got top billing on the page. But because I let other views be stated, everything I did as editor was open to the a perception that my Op-Ed page views influenced my sports page coverage. At the time, i was pissed at the implication; in retrospect, they were right.

Journalism has two facets -- reporting and commentary. Reporters collect facts; commentators use those facts to make their point. They can't be interchanged. So when you say: "When someone/some group breaks the rules, we say, 'that person/group broke the rules.' That's not opinion. When someone changes the rules without reason, we say, 'the rules have been improperly changed.' That's not opinion." their previously stated opinions factor into their credibility. If you have been making an argument for a year that the The Whig Party is corrupt, and then you present a story that suggests the Whig Party is corrupt, the public is correct to doubt your accuracy because you have laid out your opinions and, low and behold, the facts you present support your opinions.

There could be an argument made that this is the way all journalism should be, that every single thing should be taken with a grain of salt. I've been in enough newsrooms and staff meetings to believe that reporters take their responsibility as tellers of facts seriously enough for me to give them the benefit of the doubt. But blogs are different. They don't have editors second guessing their writers. They don't have a pretext of objectivity. They are written, for the most part, to make a point and facts presented are cherry picked to make that point.

Here's a question for you: If Fox were to report -- with straight, supportable facts -- something about an Obama scandal, would you believe it? If every world and allegation were supportable, but it as broken by the Washington Times, would you believe it? Probably not, because their opinions are known. I stopped believing the straight Countdown and TPM in the primaries because I knew their position on the outcome. That's what happens when you mix commentary and reporting -- all if it comes into question, and all of it can rightly be considered opinion.

Open Source Reporting

To me, significant reporting is dependent upon accounting -- that is, the systematic evaluation of quantitative information.

To the extent that we require governments to publish -- on the internet -- a full and complete record of their transactions (who, what, when, where and how), interested citizens will do the initial accounting work such that their fellow citizens can call those governments to account.

It may not be sexy (and to hear reporters, it wouldn't sell papers) but it will be effective.

ArtAppraiser makes good points. But Rich will publish with twenty links in one story. I have read it.

Rich ias a good solid liberal. I like him and I like to read him.

But I am a pajama blogger, WHAT THE HELL DO I KNOW. HAHAHA

I like that ArtAppraiser was willing to be honest enough to bite the hand that feeds him. I agree with much of his assessment.

Politico recently ran an article on TPM where it was discussed the revolving door of employees at TPM -- and how woefully underpaid they are. And this is TPM, a site that has respectability.

In the good old days, before Hearst was able to grow his syndicate, there were lots of local newspapers and, as you might expect, the quality varied. Some were independent, some were in the hip pocket of someone.

That's where we are with blogs these days. Only worse. Because as AA correctly points out, blogs are mostly about links. One of the tragedies that FNC has foisted upon us is the blurring of commentary and news. Once upon a time, that distinction was always made crystal clear. Now it's not. The cable news shows (all of them) now follow this model, so it's not surprising that people don't recognize it when it's seeped into the blogosphere.

Once upon a time, Matt Drudge broke one of the most major stories of the Clinton administration (at least in terms of it's consequences). He's done little more than that in the past 10 years. So every once in a while, you can get some inside scoop.

To be a credible organization, you have to be an organization. TPM is still, after all is said and done, Josh's baby, much as the Drudge Report is all about Matt (though I do recognize that Josh has far more people working on his site than Drudge who is still a one man show). Walter Cronkite was only the face of CBS news. Huntley and Brinkley were only the face of NBC news. But there were huge staffs, editorial boards, etc. Watergate would not have broken credibly without the serious pressure that Bradley put on Woodward and Bernstein. Who does that in the blogosphere?

A real news organization has to break news on a daily basis. Because no one has quite figured out how to monetize the Internet (except Google, but really all they have done is convince everyone to pay them), you won't see actual news blogs on the Internet for a while because it will all be done voluntarily. So, every so often, a particular blog could come up with something, but that is too fragile to base a news model on it. Only until the Internet is properly monetized will you see something approaching real news here. Perhaps the demise of the newspapers will hasten that day.

All I know is that Johnny Appleseed did not lie. It's another vicious, uncalled for, damnable lie from this pond scum know as "bloggers."

IMHO, the whole pajama-clad breed should be tied to stakes and have apples hurled at them. Or maybe better, be tied to apples and have stakes hurled at them.

Whatever.

As long as they suffer.