The thing I like about blogs is they are more or less self correcting. If they get a fact wrong we generally know within 24 hrs. A newspaper might take as much as a week.

And most blogs are aware of this fact (somebody is always watching)

My guess is that conservatives trust the mainstream press less than liberals

LIBERALS AND BLOGS....Here's a meta-question for you: If I believe that a survey if fundamentally flawed, should I highlight an odd result from it anyway? Let's find out! Today's survey comes from Harris Interactive and it concludes that 22% of......

I'd also add that we should look at the trends. The number of newspaper readers is declining and has been for decades. The number of people reading political blogs is rising—two years ago the Wall Street Journal reported that 32 million people were reading political blogs. That's a pretty sharp increase in just that short time.

The irony in this for me is that bloggers are probably newspapers' best customers. It certainly looks to me as though most political bloggers read newspapers. Lousy way to treat your best customers.

One can reasonably argue that the survey participants' views are silly. But, rather clearly, the survey is good news for blogs and bad news for the MSM; gleefully reporting it as exactly the opposite might explain why people don't trust the MSM.

And I say that as someone who finds much valuable information via the MSM, Reuters (the perpetrator in question) included.

1) Comments: On a good blog, comments give almost as much information as the article itself. This is especially true of less popular blogs like OTB, where the signal/noise ratio is relatively high. Comment threads offer counter-points, different perspectives, or reaffirmation of the article. Comments also let you interact with the article's author, to get clarification or an expansion of his/her point.

2) Hyperlinks: Most blog articles reference one or more external sources. This lets readers easily read the source material and anything that it links to. This allows independent verification of the material being cited, which usually leads to more informative comments (see above) about the material. If you are as familiar with the topic as the article's author, this puts the authority of your comments on the same level as the author's article.

I know when I go and read a certain blog, the blogger isn't pretending to be something he/she isn't, they are upfront with where they are coming from. The mainstream media is still stuck somewhere in pretending they are unbiased and everything they print is neutral.

When I know where the bias is, I can at least balance what they are saying against that bias.

I do think the television media is pretty much worthless outside of maybe the weather report and sports scores.

Most blogs are drivel. A few blogs add valuable commentary to stories reported in the mainstream media. A very small, select set of blogs does wonderful work gathering information, adding context, or correcting mainstream reporting.

And that is the beauty of the internet, you get to decide which blogs get your attention. So even if only 0.01% of all blogs are worth reading, 100% of the blogs you choose to read are worth reading. It's the ideal environment for market forces to control quality. Compare that to your choice in print or broadcast news, and you can easily see why people feel that blogs are both more accurate* and more valuable.

* The accuracy factor is probably more a perception based on how much a blog reaffirms the reader's own opinions and priorities, rather than actual accuracy.

Mainstream TV and radio news is a waste of electrons. Local newspapers generally do pretty good local reporting, and some national newspapers (NYT, WSJ, WP, etc.) do great and valuable work.

So... Is the mainstream media more accurate than blogs? Generally, Yes. Is the mainstream media more valuable than blogs? Generally, Yes.

Don't take it personally James. Your blog is not representative of the overall blog landscape. Consider that a compliment.