Why journalism is still important

Watching my Twitter stream and all the noise about the rumored Google-Twitter marriage has told me all I need to know about what has played out.  TechCrunch breaks another story about a Web 2.0 company in late stage acquisition talks with Google (before it was Digg), the various 'spheres explode, then quiets down when an "old-school" media property reports something different.

It brings up the old debate about how much to trust blogs as news sources.  JR Raphael of PC World describes this debate very well:

I know, I know: Bloggers are entitled to break news as much as traditional journalists these days. But when push comes to shove and the two trades collide, my faith still falls with the veteran reporter. It's not the title that determines my trustworthiness -- heck, All Things Digital is itself described as a blog -- it's the writer's track record when it comes to things like journalistic integrity, thoroughness of reporting, and careful evaluation of sources. Whether information's given on The New York Times or on Timmy's Totally Terrific Tech Blog, that's what I'm ultimately going to consider.

While we are lamenting the sorry decline of traditional media, let's keep this in mind as a reminder as to how important professional journalists are in informing the public.