Pajama People Vs. Legacy Media

Joanne Jacobs has an article in todays Inquirer:

Bloggers are true to the journalism adage: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out." On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog. Nobody knows you're anything. So you have to prove you're worth reading and believing by providing links to your source material or to your credentials and by making sense.
If a blogger makes an error, readers will jump on it. Then the blogger writes: "Update: Thanks to reader Joe Blow for pointing out my mistake. Actually, the moon is made of green cheese, not blue cheese." The blogger then links to the green cheese source data, so readers can check it out for themselves. Or, the blogger might write: "Reader Mary Doe says the moon is made of moon rocks. Anybody have info on this?"
Bloggers don't claim to be perfect. They claim to correct mistakes quickly and openly.
As a journalist turned education blogger, I hope the blogosphere can help journalists rebuild trust, and do a better job, by reducing their isolation.
Journalists tend to be liberal Democrats from educated, middle-class families; few spend time with blue-collar workers, people in the military or people of religious faith.
Online, journalists can hang out with a larger, more diverse crowd. The pajama people include some rabid partisans and outright nuts, sure. But many of the bloggers I've met online are thoughtful, well-informed people worth listening to.
In the 21st century, access to information isn't the monopoly of people "who buy ink by the barrel," as Mark Twain wrote. Everybody's a player.

Here's a link to Joanne's education blog.