I started out to leave a comment on the post. As is so often the case, my comment ran very long. Thus, I decided to post it here as well.

Dymphna, your post raises several important issues, among the foremost being the relative benefits to speacialization and generalization. As I understand it, J-school trains generalists, i.e. it teaches journalistic tradecraft but does not put as much emphasis on content. You don't have to have a solid or deep understanding of any particular area though it probably helps if you want to be a science or economics reporter.

It is my belief that bloggers, on the other hand, tend to excel to the degree to the degree that they specialize. People write much more forcefully, clearly, and persuasively when you write about topics with which you have first-hand experience and expertise. The blogosphere is filled with such people who, in additional to having domain-specific expertise, can also write reasonably well.

Taken as a whole, the blogosphere represents a collection of experts connected by the medium through which they express themselves rather than through membership in the same single profession or organization. As I see it, this constitutes the basis of its comparative advantage relative to many , if not most, mainstream media organizations.

The problem for the MSM organizations is that it is prohibitively expensive, if not downright impossible, for any one of them to keep such a high degree of expertise on the payroll all the time. How often, after all, does a story requiring in-depth knowledge of F-16 fighters come up. I don't know the answer but I do know that it is not frequently enough for anyone to justify keeping such person on the payroll all year.

The solution that MSM organizations have had over the years is a reasonable and reasonably efficient one: hire broadly-trained generalists to cover certain broad topics areas, e.g. sports, economics, politics, etc., and then have them find and interview experts when necessary. This keeps costs to an acceptable level.

The problems with this approach are now becoming more evident. Of the most relevant to this discussion is that a generalists can't always ascertain when they have the facts right and when they have been fed a line of bull. Even without imputing any ill intent or biases, it is very easy for a generalist to get the facts wrong about complex issues that are on the margins of their comfort zone. Add to this the time pressure that many face (news is a business whose product has a rapidly decreasing shelf-life) and you have a recipe for shoddy and second-rate reportage. Again, this can be the case without assuming that reporters have particular agendas or biases.

To be fair, good reporters who cover a subject or topic for years can become really valuable experts. The challenge as I see it is for news organizations and their reporters to do a good enough job over the several short terms that comprise the long-term required to gain that expertise. In the rapidly changing news-and-views industry, one fuelled by blogs and the internet, time is the one thing they may be sorely lacking.

I not am shedding tears over this: it's how capitalism is supposed to work. News organizations will have to adapt to these changes or die. Today I bet that, on the whole, they adapt, though some will certainly be meeting their end.

Update: Guy Spier read Dymphna's post and has some ideas about how MSM organizations will adapt: