Are you claiming conservative bias in the news media???
I'm a bit confused by your reply, actually. The influence of advertising and corporate ownership of media doesn't create fairness and credibility, they're the conflicts that can introduce bias. And forgive me for pointing this out, but you're describing the same influences as cited by those who claim conservative bias. Are you feeling OK? It's not like you to give me a freebie like that.
I'm not saying the blogosphere is the end-all be-all of communication mediums, instead I think it adds a LOT to the party.
One could hardly argue that as a communication medium in general blogs aren't a powerful advancement. It's just this I choke on:
Blogging is revolutionizing the world. If you blink, you may miss it. Suddenly you'll find you're like the bloke who has invested all his money in 8 track tapes, and is doing so even in 2005, while the rest of the world is listening to digital music.
To cut through the hype, blogging is simply the first workable implementation of the old idea that the Net will allow a multitude of smaller voices to be heard; that publishing and journalism will become individual endeavors and that the corporate dinosaurs will die. It took a while to figure out a self-publishing mechanism that works tolerably well (blogs aren't the first attempt). And as often happens, when a shining vision is finally tested in real life by non-visionaries, you discover the flaws. The visionaries never addressed that nagging credibility issue, but now we know that that's the central problem.
If blogs are ever to become more than just the white noise of millions of people talking to themselves, or the insane babble of a million soapboxes in a virtual Hyde Park, organizations will have to emerge, formalism will grudgingly replace anarchy, and I predict (like shooting fish in a barrel) that the successful solutions will wisely borrow heavily from what's already known to work. The blogosphere will eventually be put into perspective as another medium for journalism, not a "new journalism". It will reset the clock on media consolidation, allowing much smaller organizations, but it won't (usefully) lead to no organization at all.
Which you sort of acknowledge in your original post on this. But how revolutionary is it really, when you can describe it so well using "old journalism" terms like "freelance reporters" and "news agencies"...if blog-journalism is so unique, why could this description of the work apply equally well to bloggers as to embedded journalists employed by traditional news organizations:
with cell phone video cameras, observing all the events of the world in real time, while commenting on them. Their reports are displayed on the web and on television and they are compensated as freelance reporters.
You've simply recreated the traditional news business (as it's now being conducted using modern technology). Blogging brings something new to to the table? Other than removal of professional standards?