Traditional media outlets are faster (but dumber) than bloggers

A very long time ago, a certain Denver newspaper megacorp decided to launch a little thing called Politics West. The effort centered around the Gang of Four blog, wherein a bunch of professional pundits got yet another platform for their personalities. At the time I was doing a lot of political blogging. And someplace I can no longer locate, I wrote this little rant about the idiocy of the SCLM. It went something like this:

Bloggers are more passionate, more involved and more willing to engage in long conversations than journalists are. The only competitive advantages they have over us are speed and access. In what business model can you make money by ignoring your advantages and instead copying a bunch of activists who are willing to work their butts off for free? The media provide us with fast, accurate information. That's their job. Why won't they do their job?

Which is a roundabout way of linking to a post from Trendsspotting:

Cornell Researchers report that most news flowed from the traditional media to the blogs: The traditional news was found to lead blogs discussions by 2.5 hours on average.

No kidding. The media reports the news. The people converse and decipher meaning. That is the way things ought to work. I think newspapers are failing because they tried to subvert this order, asking citizen journalists to find news items for pundits to discuss.