While I agree that availability is a concern, I wish to take issue with your characterization of those who don't see 'big media' as the 'enemy of free expression' as being 'sober.'

Personally, I see much of "new media" as being, in the political sense, open-source. It is for this reason, rather than immediacy, that I am an avid reader. Just as open-source applications serve to offer alternatives to homogenous, monopolistic software vendors, so too does this arena offer alternatives.

Witness the AP's embarrassment over the doctored photographs allegedly coming from Lebanon. Without the internet, would this ever have seen the light of day ? Witness RatherGate, and the brutal dissection of what can only be viewed as media colusion in a fabrication of events.

Now I sound like a raving paranoid, and I am not.

What I am, instead, is a student of the human condition. This is less about some grand conspiracy than it is about individuals allowing themselves to be blinded, led, or corrupted by their position. The most important thing for human freedom is a check on power. Even as legacy media serves as a check on political power, so does the internet serve as a check on media power.

It's been said that a lie can be halfway around the world before the truth even gets its shoes on.

I think the internet can help by making easier for the truth to catch up. And by letting any individuals who might otherwise be tempted to abuse their positions, or to shirk their responsibilities to get at the truth, that they are on notice. And that's all to the good.

I don't watch TV much any more because it - and radio news, for that matter - only seems to report on the bad, badder, baddest, ugliest stuff. A friend reported to me that a few days ago, all TV news stations and radio stations reported only on a plane crash in Orange County, CA and another disaster in PA. Where's the news about the good things - teachers who excel, students who go above and beyond to accomplish good things. What we focus on, we become. The news focuses on tragedy and misery and ugliness. What becomes of us if we stay on a diet of that? Maybe that is the source of much of the epidemic depression that has most of our teenagers in its grip? Time, Newsweek, World Report are marginally better. One would like to have a balance of the good reported. It is just as real and valid and interesting and probably more useful as the other.

I agree with Carolyn, TV is so appalling, we haven't had it in three years with no reason to buy one. I read my local newspaper but only to keep abreast of it all.

I get 95% of my news through blogs and certain specialized online media I trust for journalistic quality.

What I look for:

1- I chose what amount of information I want, where, when and how
2- I chose quality which helps me focus on positive things
3- I chose the flow of the information, i.e. when I want to read it
4- I go online because it's not in my face as TV is, i.e. temptation to watch more

I asked why the local newspaper here in Long Beach didn't fear being irrelevant with the online revolution and was told their readership is older and not necessarily computer savvy. Interesting but for how long?

Yet, why isn't the new media all that? Simply because it hasn't innovated on the delivery content. It has innovated on the delivery via the Internet but the content is the same. Negative news is still not fun! It might keep some people scared but more and more seem to turn away from it.

As Carolyn pointed out, most news is still poor journalism that only focuses on sensational negative stories. Hardly worth my time.

So, all in all, the next news media powerhouse that gets it right will understand the subtle balance between hooking people to news while keeping them happy.