As Yglesias puts it:
...this will just be the first step in a process that leads to the total elimination of the op-ed page as we understand it. In a blogging world, the comparative advantage of a profit making newspaper enterprise is clearly its ability to undertake reporting projects that require resources and expertise that can't be mobilized more-or-less for free by people working in their spare time.
Probably the most striking thing about web surfing is that one can move from the more intelligent blogs to the mainstream media opinion pages and the shift can be seamless, except that sometimes the blogs are more imaginative and thoughtful. The only advantage that the "pro" columnists have is access to the powerful -- though in terms of forming astute opinion, that may not be an advantage at all. The days of "Scotty" Reston and Walter Lippmann explaining the world to us from on high are gone.
Take the case of architecture/urban planning, for example. While the "Mainstream Media Design Critics" listed in the left-hand column are good -- with some clearly far superior to others -- they by no means have a distinct advantage over the more astute city-bloggers. In fact putting it another way, you could take any one of a dozen bloggers whom I read daily and they could be writing for the NYTimes (oh that's an easy substitution!) tomorrow.
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