The internet has forever changed the way we do news. Blogs are here to stay, and they make up a growing portion of the journalistic landscape. More and more traditional newspeople people are even going from print to online. Yet, for some reason (likely survival instincts), this reality and its consequences often prove tough to grasp for the traditional media. Many in the old guard still sneer at "bloggers." This dismissiveness is what gave rise to Atrios's ever present "Blogger Ethics Panel" joke - old media people keep complaining that bloggers have no ethical standards to live up to, and thus that they shouldn't be trusted. Of course, while this is true of some bloggers, you can tell which. The beauty of the internet is that it makes transparency possible, so that you can always look up what someone has written and determine for themselves if the writer's a hack (and if a writer not transparent, you can usually assume he is a hack.). People can also much more easily source-check within one piece. It's starting to become accepted in journalism circles that transparency is the new objectivity. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this notion's acceptance is coming along as about the same speed as the acceptance of bloggers as legit news sources.
