Joan Walsh, Salon's editor-in-chief, takes a look back at Rather-gate on the eve of the great man's departure and what it does and doesn't say about both the MSM and the blogosphere.

An excerpt:

It's reflexive, irresistible: When Dan Rather says goodbye Wednesday night, some trend watchers will tell us it marks the end of one form of media -- big media, corporate media, old media and, according to some, liberal media -- and the emergence of a new one, ruled by a populist, disintermediated chorus of citizen journalists who live in something that's been badly labeled "the blogosphere."

We all know the narrative: Within hours of Rather's Sept. 8 "60 Minutes Wednesday" segment, on allegations that President Bush got special treatment in the Texas Air National Guard, bloggers began unraveling the story, pointing particularly to problems in key source documents that seemed to indicate they were forgeries. (Problems that came to light, ironically, when CBS posted the documents on the Internet, where they could be instantly scrutinized by millions.)

It's an Internet success story and we want to believe it. We love Internet success stories because we are one! (That's the cardinal rule of the blogosphere -- transparency cures all ills! Let your biases hang out!) But it's not the whole truth. ...

Rathergate may have hastened Rather's departure, but it didn't cause it. Which is not to say it wasn't a scandal. The story of how CBS ran with the Sept. 8 Bush report is an awful chapter in journalism and reveals terrible flaws in the news organization. I want to hand CBS's investigative-panel report on the mess to every new hire at Salon; it should be taught at every journalism school.

But it's possible to lament the handling of the National Guard story loudly without concluding that it either proves the mainstream media (MSM) is hopelessly corrupt and necessarily dead, and/or that the blogosphere is what tells us both things are true.

The CBS Guard story was a train wreck. Every journalist who reads the 224-page independent-panel report on it will cringe and shudder. Any reporter, editor or producer who has ever looked at the clock when making a decision about whether a story is ready for publication or broadcast will vow to hide all the clocks and watches in the future. ...

At their best, news and politics bloggers fuse journalism with activism and passion, like the late I.F. Stone who, with guts and determination, and armed with facts, exposed layers of corruption in politicians and institutions. Given that the media itself -- notably broadcast news and the newspaper industry -- has become another lumbering institution, often sacrificing fearlessness to the bottom line, furious bloggers, beholden only to themselves, provide a needed jolt of adrenalin. Meanwhile, let's remember that bloggers didn't do Rather or CBS in -- CBS, and to a lesser extent Rather, did.

What the mainstream media can still offer its audience is a commitment to some version of the truth and an organization and infrastructure that goes out and finds it. Yes, CBS failed on both counts in this case, but it doesn't mean the goals aren't worth having.