...by any other name would smell as sweet.

Mainstream news sites are trouncing news-oriented blogs by a wide margin.

Obviously.

At their very core, blogs are counter-culture. Blogs are designed to give an opinion that the mainstream media will not bother to state. To shed light on an issue left in the dark by the MSM. In his article, "That Which We Call a Blog..." Dan Mitchell breaks no new ground and offers only one bit on insight. He states,

The report also shows that while blogs may present no real threat to top news organizations, niche publications are far more vulnerable. "This realm of publishing, which I call 'The Magic Middle' of the attention curve," Mr. Sifry writes, "highlights some of the most interesting and influential bloggers and publishers that are often writing about topics that are topical or niche. And what is so interesting to me is how exciting, informative and witty these blogs often are. I've noticed that often these blogs are more topical or focused on a niche area, like gardening, knitting, nanotech, MP3's or journalism."

This last quote saves this article from complete irrelevance. Words like interesting, influential, niche, exciting, and witty are all veryy good descriptions of a well-written blog.

Yes, blogs aren't as popular as cnn.com. Yes, the line between blogs and news sites is increasingly becoming blurred. However, neither of these things are necessarily bad.