WebProNews

I agree. This will be a very interesting few years in print media.

It is much cheaper and faster to do write and read over the internet so why not just switch? I mean back then newspapers were the only type of cheap up to date news they can get. Now, television is getting a bit expensive ($50 for cable/ satellite I mean come on) Newspaper cost quite a bit and we have to waste paper! Switching to the internet and starting blogs and websites for new sources is a great idea to get things going on the right path. I mean what household doesn't have a computer with internet nowadays? I believe journalism will still live, we just got to learn how to adapt.

Uh, your piece would have been very nice...had I read it 7 years ago.  Sorry, but not only is this old news regarding bloggers, you don't seem to understand the fundamental reasons WHY people are more inclined to get their "real" news somewhere other than MSM.

Maybe next time you can present the research that shows the ownership of MSM - and then you might want to talk about the corporations they own.  Perhaps you might want to even LOOK at a genre such as cable network news and just SEE how much your news is spun and regurgitated while at the same time, hypnotizing you with ads that you probably don't even notice anymore.

The REAL reason the internet(s) have threatened and will CONTINUE to threaten MSM is because it's a matter of point and click to find TRUTH - once you've determined the credibility and credentials of any given blog or website.  Once it's clear to you as a consumer that you're being manipulated, suddenly, televisons go off and search engines go on.

You can rationalize till the cows come home but here's a bulletin for you.  The American people are NOT stupid.  They KNOW when they're being fed a pack of lies and you might simply look to the polling of the current leader's number from 2000 to 2008 as a start.

On no, this is not about $$ on the part of the consumer.  It's about disgust for the endless lies and propaganda spewing from MSM and a concrete, informed decision on the part of the consumer to find truth.

In case you haven't heard, the Fourth Estate is dead.

When you read the informed and  in-depth analysis available all over the blogosphere (Glenn Greenwald on Salon.com, Brad Friedman on BradBlog.com, Juan Cole on JuanCole.com), and then you read/view  the superficial blather put out by CNN (missing white women, anyone?), Faux News (who's John Edwards?), the New York Times (we were against the war, really.  Judith who?), and NPR, the mainstream media begins to seem increasingly out of touch and irrelevant.

Look, if I want to keep up with Iraq, I can either listen to/read the cliches of an American MSM "journalist" who parrots the conventional wisdon (because s/he doesn't speak the language and only has access to what s/he's told by spokepeople of the various players), or I can read blogs like Bagdhad Burning, written by an Iraqi living the day to day reality.  

On domestic news, the mainstream media seems increasingly like an extension of the marketing communications arms of their various corporate owners and not like an institution with any interest whatsoever in reporting actual reality. Nowhere is this more clear to me than in the statistically biased coverage of John Edwards.  For the number of votes he's gotten, he's been covered about 1/10 as much as you'd expect.  Why?  Because he's down on big corporations, and that's a threat to the big corporations that own media outlets.

The government controls what it funds.