Colman comments go international

I posted earlier on the comments by National Business Review publisher Barry Colman about the "huge band of amateur, untrained, unqualified bloggers who have swarmed over the internet pouring out columns of unsubstantiated “facts” and hysterical opinion."

Now Colman's comment have been picked up upon internationally. Economist Peter Klein has blogged on the topic at the The Beacon, the blog of the Independent Institute.

In the comments section to the Klein post Mary Theroux makes the interesting observation that

Yes, the blogosphere has some junk, but our one local daily paper has virtually nothing but junk science in it, and I certainly wouldn’t trust any economic analysis it offered: Give me a free and open marketplace of information anytime!

And this is the point. There is junk in the blogosphere no doubt, but there is also junk in the standard print media, but what keeps the junk in check is competition in the market for information. The more competition, the more likely it is that junk will be spotted and driven out. And the blogosphere provides competition. So we should welcome it, no matter what effects it may have on the more traditional news outlets.