Last Sunday in the LA Times, I read a guest editorial by Michael Skube about how useless bloggers were compared with "real reporters". It was a piece fairly begging for a response, particularly in light of the recent Beauchamps fabulist controversy at TNR, Agence France Press fauxtography and the seemingly unending series of professional malpractice being foisted on the public by media too lazy, too partisan and too career-focused to "edit" themselves into credibility.

The rebuttal seemed obvious to me--I read honest-to-goodness reportage in blogs on a daily basis, much of it being the definitive source. Just this week I read Michael Totten and Michael Yon from Iraq--nothing the MSM has done even comes close. As would be obvious to regular readers, I didn't actually write that rebuttal for reasons related to the blogging dynamic: you can write early or you can write profoundly and later. If you can do either of those, then its best to leave it to others who can.

Well, Jay Rosen can and did.

Rosen provides an extensive but hardly comprehensive list of blogger reportage while subjecting the unfortunate Dr. Skube to a well-earned chastisement for not doing his homework.

The ironic aspect of this is that Skube, unintentionally no doubt, produced a textbook example of why the traditional media is circling the bowl these days. The editorial reflected his prejudice, a lack of intellectual rigor, a sense of entitlement, a poor work ethic and poor ethics in general. Its how you get black and white crap and if the mentors of our journalistic class are this corrupt, its hardly surprising that the public lacks confidence in the traditional sources of news.

Our professionals seem to be getting more amateurish, and our amateurs are getting more professional. People will vote with their cursors.