"So what have these people contributed to journalism?" asks Matt Welch, an associate editor for Reason magazine, after cataloguing the past couple of years of blogging history. "Four things: personality, eyewitness testimony, editorial filtering, and uncounted gigabytes of new knowledge."
The more bloggers read the news and write their own, the more they become a virtual "journalism review" staff of astute fact-checkers and media critics, as Welch observes in this long (c. 4,000 words) piece in Columbia Journalism Review.
"For lazy columnists and defensive gatekeepers, it can seem as if the hounds from a mediocre hell have been unleashed," he says. "But for curious professionals, it is a marvelous opportunity and entertaining spectacle; they discover what the audience finds important and encounter specialists who can rip apart the work of many a generalist." Welch lists his favorites, both outside and inside the pro-journalist ranks, including the Hit and Run blog he contributes to at reason.com.
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