Two non-journalists make some sweeping statements about how blogging has improved journalism. Allow me to raise a skeptical eyebrow in response.

Further to the post below, here's a Wired article on crowdsourcing. From the blurb:

Remember outsourcing? Sending jobs to India and China is so 2003. The new pool of cheap labor: everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R & D.

Citizen journalism, "crowd powered media" company NowPublic Technologies Inc. of Vancouver now has US$10.6 million to play with courtesy of U.S. venture capitalists.

Ed Anger, the long-time voice at the Weekly World News for the perpetually miffed trailer park set, isn't a real person. After you've picked yourself up off the floor, continue reading.

From the NYT:

“The bug at the bottom of the Calendar front in today’s Los Angeles Times says columnist Patrick Goldstein is on assignment,” began a July 24 item on the Web site L.A. Observed. “Not true. His The Big Picture column for Tuesday was killed.”

The site ran the 1,450-word column, which “fell into our hands,” in its entirety. In it, Mr. Goldstein proposed that his newspaper promote itself by following the lead of The Mail on Sunday in Britain, which inserted Prince’s latest CD into 2.9 million copies, and also give away music.

From the NYT:

Activists are urging Home Depot, which recently unveiled an environmentally conscious marketing program, to withdraw advertising from Fox News, whose hosts and commentators dismiss global warming as liberal hysteria. But Home Depot is unswayed, and the environmentalists appear to be doing something they generally discourage: wasting energy.

A short video by Robert Greenwald, “Fox Attacks: The Environment,” has been viewed more than 380,000 times since it was posted on YouTube on July 9. Like his feature-length “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism,” the video highlights Fox News clips, in this case experts claiming that global warming caused by pollution is, among other things, a “hoax.”

In April, Home Depot introduced an Eco Options label for thousands of products that it deemed environmentally friendly.

“You can’t say we’re green and give money to an organization that day after day, week after week and month after month says that global warming is something that is made up by a few kooky scientists,” Mr. Greenwald said.

“It’s not our place to judge Fox News’s position or any other media outlet’s position on global warning,” responded Ron Jarvis, vice president for environmental innovation at the retailer, based in Atlanta. “Nor will we try to influence that position with our advertising dollars. We’re advertisers, not censors.”

Greenwald has another video up: Fox Attacks Bloggers.