because I know that the journalists are, as I said, under pressure to run a story as soon as possible, and often play fast and loose with facts in a way bloggers cannot and still maintain readers.
You really think so?
Personally, I would think if what you said were true, we wouldn't have any vaccine deniers, Oprah would be penniless, & Rush Limbaugh would never have been famous at all. Really, how does Rush keep any viewers despite his wonderful record of lies, b.s., inaccuracies and hypocrisy?
No, they don't write, but they're of the same class as youtube bloggers. They are 2 of many that have proven the only thing you need to get readers or viewers, is a well-presented story. Facts be damned.
Bloggers just don't have the resources, the time, the inclination, the requirement, or the ability to do the kind of fact checking that mainstream media does. If a blogger spends 6 months intensely investigating a story, that is 180 blog posts they didn't write. The only thing that hurts bloggers total viewer #s is not posting regularly. While many outlets, *cough* cnn *cough*, have tried to follow the blogger money train in terms of story quality, and there have been scandals and honest mistakes in mainstream, they still have the power to produce quality, in-depth, reports. Bloggers don't. Just like individual code-whizes can produce some stunningly awesome apps, hacks, & snippets, but can't, in a 1000 years, just "whip up" a quality OS.
Do *some* bloggers do better and produce quality stuff? Sure. To me though, that only proves a million monkeys working together can eventually produce Shakespeare: 999,999 monkeys throwing shit + 1 Mojo Jojo.
Remind me again how did Linux come into existance?