These folks who write this kind of drivel seem to be like old people reminiscing about the good ole’ days(through rose colored lens). It’s amusing that they’re complaining about the dismantling of local papers, when they are the OG’s when it came to doing so.

When Marrison says they are “offsetting the polarizing impact of contemporary politics,” he really means that his newspaper stifles speech by ignoring points of view they don’t agree with, and doing so while claiming objectivity.

Blogs, generally, are bad. And micro-blogs are even worse. But no one has a monopoly on answering the question: “What happened today?” And individuals are smart enough to quickly sort out what is quality reporting and what is not.

Right now, newspapers, for all their faults, are far better at reporting than blogs. For example, your analysis of this death penalty case, while original, wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting without excerpts from full-time reporters.

The worst thing Ben is saying is that, if you hired reporters and turned LawDork into a full-blown Columbus-based online newspaper, you could NEVER be as legitimate or as meaningful to a community simply because you aren’t in print. And that is complete nonsense. All the internet does is create an almost-perfect marketplace, where disseminating information is almost without cost, so anyone with the time and skill can reach a massive audience.

Also, in my hypothetical situation, I would prefer reading the LawDork Gazette instead The Dispatch, because you don’t insult your readers by claiming to hold a monopoly on objective news.