Fountain of reason or den of chaos? The best news is ...

One of Brad DeLong's hobbies is ripping the New York Times and (especially) the Washington Post for crummy journalism. In general, he makes his case well. On the other hand, people who read DeLong would probably agree with him:

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: "If You Really Want to Know What's Going on, I Recommend Sticking to the Blogs":

But this is the world in which we live in: respected weblogs run by intelligent commentators with good track records and strong senses of honor are our best information sources these days.

The more mainstream journalists criticize the "rabid blogosphere", the more panicky they seem. The people on my bloglist are simply more informed, intelligent, and rational than 99% of what I read in the NYT or elsewhere. I don't know why that is so. Many the people I read are journalists and writers, so it's not a problem with journalists per se. My guess is that something's broken about the way the work of journalists gets turned into newspaper columns...