Rafael Behr, (Just a thought, but is he related to Edward? Just finished his "Anyone here been raped and speaks English", heartily recommended) gets it right about blogging over at the Observer blog.

So you still have to pay a professional for news. Comment and
polemic and stylistic flourish, however, are free. It doesn’t take a
long look around the blogs to see that a lot (a majority perhaps) of
the people who get paid to stroke their chins and think big thoughts
and write quite articulately about the issues of the day are no better
at it than lots of people who do it for fun on the internet. Only a
handful of columnists bring something truly unique – good contacts,
exceptional insight – to the party.

In view of all that, the
Observer blog predicts (rashly and with the caveat that it might change
its mind at any moment) that professional journalism will survive but
will be radically streamlined. There will always be demand for good
reporters and good editors. There will always be a need for people who
have the time and resources to go and get facts, and for people who can
ask the right questions of the reporters to make sure the facts are
straight. What medium they do this in is irrelevant, but they will be
paid to do it and there will be commercial enterprises (and, I hope,
the BBC) producing their work.

As for the rest, commentators,
astrologers, critics, chefs, fashionistas, pontificators and quite
possibly photographers – they will have to fight it out in the
blogosphere on equal terms with the pyjama brigade. The good ones will
get financial backing and be paid to do it, the bad ones will have to
be satsified with doing it for kicks.

I’m not one of these triumphalists who think that the major media is going to get swept away by blogs and bloggers. The above sounds just about right.