Bloggers: parasites, or symbiotes?

As newspapers crash and burn every day, they seem to be able to blame everyone except themselves. People are canceling subscriptions, advertisers are taking their business elsewhere, and bloggers are pointing and laughing. This provokes the newspapers into claiming bloggers would be nothing, nothing without them! Bloggers don't do the hard work of investigative reporting! (Actually, some bloggers DO. Yon, Totten, Malkin, and the horde at Pajamas Media--and the reason newspapers are getting hammered into the ground is they *don't*). Complaints are also made about the internet. Attempts by newspapers to put their content behind a firewall failed, to be charitable about it. So, maybe they don't have content people want? Or they thought they could charge the same rates when no paper or ink or printing presses or delivery boys were involved?

Sure, bloggers quote newspaper articles. Most of the blogs I read are quoting those articles to shoot them full of holes. They would LOVE it if the newspapers wrote accurate stories with logic connecting the data like pearls in a necklace! (After recovering from the shock, that is.)

Here's what I'd like to see, self-righteous newspapers. An edition wherein you use no wireservices. No articles originally published elsewhere. No syndicated columnists. Only content your actual employees generate.

It wouldn't take much paper, that's for sure.