This editorial in the LA Times is the latest MSM salvo against bloggers. Writer Michael Skube lends us to believe that “real reporting” is best left the professionals.

“In our time, the Washington Post’s reporting, in late 2005, of the CIA’s secret overseas prisons and its painstaking reports this year on problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center — both of which won Pulitzer Prizes — were not exercises in armchair commentary. The disgrace at Walter Reed, true enough, was first mentioned in a blog, but the full scope of that story could not have been undertaken by a blogger or, for that matter, an Op-Ed columnist, whose interest is in expressing an opinion quickly and pungently. Such a story demanded time, thorough fact-checking and verification and, most of all, perseverance. It’s not something one does as a hobby.

The more important the story, the more incidental our opinions become. Something larger is needed: the patient sifting of fact, the acknowledgment that assertion is not evidence and, as the best writers understand, the depiction of real life. Reasoned argument, as well as top-of-the-head comment on the blogosphere, will follow soon enough, and it should. But what lodges in the memory, and sometimes knifes us in the heart, is the fidelity with which a writer observes and tells. The word has lost its luster, but we once called that reporting.”

Mind you that while the above mentioned story on CIA prisons won a Pulitzer Prize but it also irreparably harmed national security and allowed the enemies of the US - namely terrorists - a glimpse into how we try to find them. Nice job!

But I think Skube should have held his powder, especially considering the mirade of false tales told by the MSM over the last few years. That brings us to the veracity of the “real reporter”, a picture I might add isn’t selling papers. In poll after poll we see that the public doesn’t trust the average story from the average reporter. In fact is most of the lastest polls the question bias of reporters is believed more than the story they tell.

Of course that means that they believe reporter will lie on a dime to protect their view. As a consequence media outlets - like the LA Times are loosing subscriptions in droves and with more and more stories being found to be either blatantly incorrect and in some cases made up (hello Dan Rather), so they’re loosing credibility.

Of course it is interesting that Skube picks predominately on the blogs on the left for his vitriol, most of which are notorious for muckraking and thus I could give him points for choosing his subjects wisely.