I love it when "professional" journalists get all emotional about bloggers:

Idolaters of Web-based news and information sites, "citizen"-produced journalism, and the blogosphere of individual self-publishers, often argue that old mainstays such as The Chronicle are, in fact, getting only what they deserve.

I'd have more sympathy for Neil Henry if the average journalists track record was better; as it is, my sympathy does not run over. Just look at news coverage of a topic you know well - how often is it accurate? How often are tech stories in the mainstream media as laughable as the scenes from Hollywood thrillers?

Too often to make me comfortable, that's for sure. I started wondering about fields I knew less about years ago due to this - if they screw up the stuff I know a thing or two about, how well do they do on things I only have passing knowledge of? My guess is: no better.

It kind of boils down to this: The best sections of the paper tend to be sports and movie reviews. Why? Because the people they hire for those slots are passionate about those fields, and they care deeply about them. Sure, they have biases (the New York guys will lean for the Yankees or Mets, the Boston guys for the Red Sox, etc) - but they know the subject. On technology, science, politics (etc) - I have no such confidence. Every day, I tend to pick some story at random, do a few minutes of Googling, and find out that the reporter who filed the story obviously didn't do any research.

So sorry, Neil - when you start living up the the standards set by guys like Peter Gammon, I'll shed a few tears. Until then, not so much.

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