David Carr has a good post over on the NY Times Media Decoder blog about a Project for Excellence in Journalism study on the lack of reporting in blog posts. The study found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that an average of 8 out of 10 stories online contained no original reporting, but rather linked to reporting done by other sources.

Carr writes:

The activity has its merits, but truly kicking the can down the road and advancing the story is not generally one of them. Instead, we depend on the source material for insight, sometimes treating it as our own — the technical, legal term for that is stealing — or sometimes excerpting.

So, basically, bloggers add nothing except perhaps new audiences to the same content. But by saying “we depend on the source material for insight,” he also implies something much bigger: if we rely on traditional media for reporting AND for analysis, where will the ideas come from if print (or subscription-based journalism, as I am now thinking of it) dies?

Source: Reporting on a Scarcity of Reporting Without Reporting – Media Decoder Blog – NYTimes.com.