really don't understand how anyone could know what's going on in the U.S. or the larger world without the likes of the NYT, WP, LAT, WSJ. Magazines, radio, TV, and the blogosphere would be lost wihtout 'em.
[WS:] Do not they all rely on wire services, like Reuters or AFP? If the Reuters service is available on Yahoo for free, that would cut out other intermediaries (like NYT) out of the loop without reducing the availability of information.
As to Chuck's point that people now look for alternative sources of information - in one aspect this is true, particularly in developing countries, where thanks to mobile phones and internet cafes people can access information totally bypassing local bosses and power brokers.
But people are not computers, they are not fed information by wires. They are very selective, they acquire and process information through socially constructed cognitive frameworks that a priori determine what is relevant and believable and what is not. Customary and socially accepted sources of information carry significantly more weight than unknown an unfamiliar ones, regardless of the factual contents and truth value of the information itself. Local people tend to believe local shaman or guru than information obtained via internet form WHO or the Library of Congress.
This brings us back to Doug's point about the role of the NYT, WP or WSJ. That role is not the provision of factual content, but the aura of legitimacy these print media bestow on that content. Information disseminated by these papers is more credible than that acquired from unknown sources on the internet.
Destroying that aura of legitimacy is not necessarily a good thing. There are very high transaction costs in verifying information, and those costs grow exponentially with the volume of information. Most people simply have neither time, nor resources to verify every bit information they acquire. Their necessarily use "shortcuts" - socially accepted channels of communication that are a priori accepted as valid (unless proven otherwise), which includes not only the press, but other institutions, like schools, libraries, museums, etc.
These "shortcuts" make mass literacy possible. Without them, most people's knowledge would be reduced to word salad - a hodgepodge of hearsay, urban legends, disconnected factoids, and haphazard perceptions. It would be a polarized world of few in the know (i.e. those with access to effective networks of information dissemination) and the masses of mushrooms (kept in the dark and fed manure.)
I am not saying that the new brave world of the internet cannot replicate the legitimating function of the print media - but as of now it still has a long way to go.
Wojtek