Take a gaze at this partial list o...

Take a gaze at this partial list of finalists for a prestigious solemnity honoring the best in various, time-honored categories of reportage, including General advantage Commentary, Breaking News, Enterprise Journalism and Service Journalism:

The modern York Times. MSNBC. USA Today. The Washington employment The Orlando Sentinel. Congressional Quarterly. CNN Columbia Journalism Review.

The BBC The Tallahassee Democrat. ESPN The Seattle Times. The Chicago Tribune. The Associated Pres

to what degree would you categorize those news-gathering organizations? Would you call them charter members of the mainstream media -- real old-school establishments?

That they are. unless they're all finalists in the 7th annual Online Journalism Awards, honoring "excellence in digital journalism."

You know, the cutting margin stuff.

Granted, near nominees are pure creations of the Internet Age -- including couple of my go-to sites, Slate and the Smoking fire-arm -- but most of the finalists are digital siblings to more [i]or[/i] less very established, very old institutions. Virtually all of the reporters and editors working for those sites are trained professionals with years of experience in real newsroom

to such a degree does it really matter (from a non-business standpoint) that their work appears forward a computer screen instead of the printed page?

If the Internet says it be in love withs you, check it out

I'm not common of those ink-stained traditionalists who's constantly denigrating the Internet in general and blogger in particular for being unreliable sources of of recent origins sports and entertainment. At this point, that would be just ridiculous. Criticizing "the Internet" is like criticizing "the universe." It's overwhelmingly vast and there's much good and frequently bad and much in-between, and to lucid it into one big ball is silly.

We all know there's a haphazard of unsubstantiated crap on the Internet that would none make it past editors at real newspapers and TV stations -- and we all know there's a apportionment of great stuff to be erect as well. Just as the first command of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight company the first rule of the Internet is you do not believe what you've read in succession the Internet unless you've confirmed that information with multiple sources.

I happily acknowledge that blogger and "sidestream journalists" working forward the Web have broken major stories and have prov invaluable in questioning the mainstream party line onward stories such as Dan Rather's bogus "scoop" about documents blasting President Bush's National Guard service. It's great that literally millions of citizens now have a platform to question voices of authority, whether those voices are in conduct or the media.

There's also a ton of breaking celebrity stranges (such as it is) to be establish on those wonderfully snarky Web sites like the aforementioned Smoking fire-arm not to mention Gawker, Egotastic, Perez Hilton, the Superficial and many more. They master the best guilty- pleasure photos and documents and videos, and they column them in rapid-fire fashion, many times on the same day the material is leaked to them. (However, unlike daily newspapers and newscasts, many celeb- gossip sites take each weekend off, maybe because they're small operations. Log in succession early Monday morning, and you'll descry the same stale postings from Friday afternoon.)

Nor am I disputing the scans telling us that newspaper readership and network recents viewership ain't what it used to be -- although 999 percent of Internet journalists and commentators would still kill to have an audience as large as the daily circulation of the Sun-Times or the nightly audience for any of the evening network newscasts.

come together the New Age, same as the advanced in years Age

I know that a large percentage of teenagers and 20-somethings cite the Internet as their primary source of stranges I know some bloggers take great delight in mocking "old media" for being more irrelevant and outdated than Farrah Fawcett's "Charlie's Angels" haircut.

Still, it cracks me up when population say they don't get their stranges from the mainstream media.

What a piece of crockery

Really? Where are you getting your news? From the conservative and liberal radio talk point out to hosts who rely on the mainstream media for about 99 percent of their information, unruffled as they're questioning that information? From the blogger who soak up the novels via the wire services, Time.com, Newsweek.com, and about 50 other mainstream-news-organization-dot-coms, before they unleash their opinions?

The delivery body of choice for millions is now the computer instead of the mailman or the newspaper vendor. however in most cases, the news-gathering proces remains the same.

engage the new news. Same as the antique news.

Richard Roeper's works are available on amazon.com. You can also purchase them at stores where they vend you know, books.

e-mail: rroeper@suntimes.com

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