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Emersonian wave of bloggers to swamp the Globe?

That's what Christopher Lydon argues.

Now, who am I to disagree, sitting here at my dining room table tapping out this post, as I help plot an entire business plan based on blogging?

But before we tap the last nail into the coffin of cold, dead MSM, I'd argue there are still things out there that only fulltime professional journalists are going to tell you about; that news organizations will survive, albeit no longer as darkened newsrooms of pale, ink-stained wretches calling for the copyboy as they triumphantly slam finished stories down on giant spikes.

A couple of examples:

First, the whole priest scandal. That took months of fulltime investigative work - and follow-up reporting.

More recently, we had that Emerson scaffolding collapse. OK, I hear you yelling at me: But the bloggers did as good a job as the pros at covering that! Yes, they did. The first day. But who was there the second day to report on why the scaffolding collapsed? The Globe and Herald.

All MSM organizations face interesting challenges today. Some likely won't survive. But some will, possibly as online news outlets, where people get paid to bring you the news all the time. And that's not to say that bloggers won't become "professional" or give us the sort of "micro-local" and even swarm coverage the MSM has either abandoned or can't provide. I just don't see it as the either/or proposition that Lydon seems to posit. But go read Lydon. Come back and tell me why I'm wrong.

Ooh, double disclosure bonus day! I'm not just a full-time professional journalist, I write a more-or-less weekly column for the Globe.

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