This might also be the place to relate that when Michigan was in Denver preparing for their semifinal against Notre Dame, they made it clear Billy Sauer didn't really want to talk about the North Dakota game last year. The first question (from a knob at the Denver Post) was basically "how do you feel about being such a g**d*** failure in the North Dakota game last year?"Ummm, yes. Dare I say this problem isn't just in the area of sports journalism?
It's one thing to ask a "tough question" when there is the possibility of an enlightening response or someone has undertaken ethically questionable activities. Tough questions in the context of the Ann Arbor News' investigation into independent study and the like are fine. (That the Ann Arbor news passed on the opportunity to ask those questions because they didn't want an email interview is another matter entirely.) A "tough question" to a 20-year-old kid when the answer to that question is going to be the standard athlete cliche boilerplate about taking it one game at at time is just being a dick.
But journalism has this weird machismo thing going on where that's prized: see any anti-blogging screed that claims the basement-dwellers inferior because they don't say rude things directly to the players themselves. I've always found it interesting that said screeds contain the implication that bloggers are wantonly negative because they don't have to face repercussions. Newspapers, meanwhile, are full of people who are wantonly negative because they like being wantonly negative even in the face of social approbation.
Anyway, blogging is the ultimate in-touch news reporting by actual normal people. There's no pretense of objectivity--for pretense is all it ever is--just news reporting and commentary. It works better in sports reporting than in politics; after all, it's always more fun to read a sports article or column by someone who's fired up about their team, like Bill Simmons. But political news is also placed into a larger narrative, and anyone who thinks that narrative is objective is fooling themselves. Blogging is especially valuable for understanding others' narratives, while the national media gets stuck in whatever narrative favors its own (liberal) bias.
But because they're in print or on TV, the mainstream media has become proud and arrogant. It was only a matter of time before a Rathergate happened, or any of the other media debacles that have occurred in the last half-decade or so. For many, "fake but accurate" said it all. There will always be snobbery attached to print, to national syndication, and to prestigious journalism schools, but bloggers will inevitably play a larger role in national politics from here on out.
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