PEGGY NOONANS INSIGHT

A wonderful column yesterday in the WSJ by Peggy Noonan - one of my two favorite columnists (Mark Steyn is the other!).

She summarizes her thoughts on the MSM (Main Stream Media) and the deep changes it is undergoing primarily due to the exponential growth of BLOGS (Web Logs). Their monopoly on the reporting of news is gone, along with their power to manipulate the news, due to an infinite number of reporters and fact checkers (bloggers) working real time. Dan Rathers problem is the biggest example of this phenomena at work, but you can bet it is effecting all MSM writers working today!

On BLOGS: "You can argue in public on a blog or on TV, you can put forth information that counters the information in the report. You can have a voice. You can change the story. You can bring down a news division. Is this improvement? Oh yes it is."

On BLOGGERS: "They're doing what excellent reporters would do."

And I particularly liked this: "Half the writers for the Sunday New York Times are eccentrics home in their pajamas." Not only the "pajamahadeen" but also the "pajamasheviks"!