Russert's passing leads Time to speculate about journalism today

clipped from www.time.com Establishment journalism has gotten better at serving its powerful sources than its public. Fiascoes like the Iraq-WMD reporting gave many the impression that the old rules mainly protect consultant-cosseted public officials who need protection least. if 3 million people read Drudge and 65,000 read the New Republic, which is mainstream? And the campaigns have noticed. When the Obama camp sought to debunk online rumors (e.g., that he was not a U.S. citizen by birth), it started its own website and sent Obama's birth certificate to dailykos.com The campaign is too savvy to believe that people take the press as the sole arbiter of truth anymore. t's hard to imagine a future Russert with that kind of singular authority, as the power to set the news agenda moves from insiders to outsiders. Maybe we'll remember this election as the one when we stopped talking about "the old media" and "the new media" and, simply, met the press.