InstaPundit is hyping blogs as having better factchecking than the Times, but that's pushing it somewhat. Blogs need news media. They can and do add counterspin and the kind of commentary that most news outlets are too blind to see the need for, and they glean from sources that few of us could scan on our own, but they can't provide the original reporting in most cases. Of course, we're not really sure that we get that all the time from reporters, but most of the time we do.