gardener - 11:29 am on Mar 4, 2007 (gmt 0)

I used to be a "traditional" journalist.
Some news reporters do serious investigations and break new ground. However, those reporters are few and far between.

The push these days is to turn out as much as possible. There's not a whole of investigating that can go on if you're doing a story every day or so.
If you're not getting your story from a press release, or a news conference or the police radio, where do the ideas for these instant stories come from?

Why, other media of course. A reporter will read a story, make one phone call, confirm the story, and suddenly it's theirs to report for free. The original source gets no credit.

The fact that journalists are calling bloggers parasites is laughable.