This is one of the best round ups on why the news media is failing. This one observation by Hugh Hewitt nails the situation:

There is too much expertise, all of it almost instantly available now, for the traditional idea of journalism to last much longer. In the past, almost every bit of information was difficult and expensive to acquire and was therefore mediated by journalists whom readers and viewers were usually in no position to second-guess. Authority has drained from journalism for a reason. Too many of its practitioners have been easily exposed as poseurs.

Let me add that the American people are not stupid, in fact they are highly inquisitive and intelligent. The internet opened the door for the electronic pamphleteers (bloggers) to demonstrate how sharp Americans are. Journalists where never eperts in the fields they reported on. They never had a depth of experience. Posuers? Simply watchers. They are the peanut gallery.

What the old media should be experiencing is a lot of embarrasment as the American people come forward and demonstrate that they never were as dumb as the media assumed, and conversely the media was never as smart as it thought it was.

A humbling experience I am sure.