Eeeek! A Blog!

I read with interest Mary Katherine Ham's article on Hugh Hewitt's blog, "Open MSM Bonnet, Insert Bee." Mary Katherine does a good job of fisking several screams made by MSM types about the encroachment of blogs onto their territory. Over and over the point is made in the media quotes that Internet entrepreneurs are "siphoning" business away from the MSM.

Despite their whine about "competition," those quotes betray the true mindset of the MSM: they do not believe in competition. It is more an old-boys club that wants to achieve a power balance amongst themselves; and this newcomer called blogging is shifting the power paradigm.

No secret here, but we all know the MSM is overwhelmingly leftist. So while whining about competition, what they are really decrying is the diminishing of centralized control--like good little leftists. Yes, we still need the news media. I know I could not simply get on a plane and cover something like Hurricane Katrina.

But the MSM resistance is futile; bloggers will continue to grow in influence, if not in number. The explosive growth cannot go on forever. There will of course be a shakeout of people who move on to other things.

I find the irony delicious. They complain of competition, they have more freedom than ordinary citizens (so it seems), they have the resources of multi-billion-dollar corporations, and yet they are like girly-girls standing on a stool shrieking about the "mousy" blogs.

The blogs that roar.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a great roundup of items in the same vein here.