For what it’s worth, I think journalists are unnerved and defensive because one of the mediums that they’re published on now is open to anyone to publish.  They seem to feel that this is unfair. Because their access to the web is controlled, they seem to feel everyone’s should be.

Mr. Schorr, on that same NPR show, said that the internet was like a market or bazaar where anyone can come and shout anything they want and be heard by anyone who cares to listen. This is a particularly apt analogy. If we apply it to journalists on the internet, we see that it’s like making them stand on a milk crate and announce the news on the street corner just like everyone else, whereas before they had special arrangements. They spoke from a balcony with a loudspeaker.

And that’s the inversion that I think not everyone appreciates. It’s not so much that we, the bloggers have invaded the journalists’ turf, it’s rather that they’re now forced to operate on ours. A medium used to come with a certain implied or built-in credibility and certainly privilege. If you got to speak, it was sort of assumed that at least you had your facts more or less straight.

But access to a medium does not necessarily equate to credibility and really, it never has. Anyone with sufficient money can print their own newspaper. But just because something is printed on sheets of paper that look like a newspaper doesn’t mean it’s true. Trustworthy journalists and news institutions earned their stripes over the years by doing their jobs well and being proven out by facts and people’s real-world experiences.

I think journalists should believe in their own credibility a little more and realize that most of us out here reading things on the internet value reputation and track record just like we did before. Sure, there are still plenty of people who’ll choose the equivalent of the supermarket tabloid or Fox News, but you never had them anyway. It not that you’re standing on a street corner with everyone else that matters, it’s what you say when you get there.