There was a brief moment in time (sorry Stephen) when I thought the internet would break up the gate keepers. That moment has passed.
The gate keeper serves a much needed function.
Searching Google News for the Greenways crash returns 10,846 hits as of 1:45 PM EDT.
You can be very, very, good at this sort of thing and still be overwhelmed by the numbers and the difficulty of getting concise, timely, and meaningful results.
If I am, god forbid, reduced to paying cellular rates for data, what I want is a targeted selection of stories in depth and a quick overview from MSN News.
The gatekeeper can negotiate for access to content that would otherwise not be available outside the paywall. He may like Nerflix have the resources needed to underwrite the production of original content.