For years now the ‘war’ between the mainstream media and Bloggers has been raging. A new form of media is storming in scene and shifting the balance of the old media market. This is nothing new: movie theatres complained about TV for everyone - which took away most of their eyeballs. The original press people sneered first at radio and later TV reporters as well. Every form of mass communication has to proof it’s worth and develop it’s style.
As much as I applaud the new citizen journalist I don’t think we / they have taken over the world, nor deeply influence the rich and powerful. Plus the number of Bloggers who actually contribute NEW information and reports is very small.
One of the big difference between Bloggers and journalists is, that the later ones go out and report directly from wars, press conferences and events - while most Bloggers simply recycle these reporting’s. Sure - there are Bloggers in the field, but they are few and not ‘organized’. Big news corps like Reuters and BBC News have offices all over the world and they provide a continuity that is very different from the more sporadic blogosphere.
When life was simple - only those Viking terrorists and your soul to worry about
Although I don’t think that an unorganized and unstructured reporting is a bad thing (because I believe that chaos is always a self organizing affair), it is also important and highly valuable to have news providers and archives from either state funded news organizations (like many European TV stations) and commercial ones.
But most important aspect of all is that news consumption has changed - not just the reporting. The media explosion in the 80’s (actually pushed by the likes of Rupert Murdoch) and the later web revolution has changed the viewer / reader as well. Once people read / watched only a few sources and usually never questioned it’s content. That has greatly changed for good. Equally important is that news consumers started searching for their own truths. Thanks to search engines news and fact finding is no longer a domain of the professionals.
Hey, I know how to solve your problems - trust me!
But sure as hell the extra work and the extra confusion is making life more complicated and less understandable for many. No surprise that populism also has risen strongly in the last few decades. Simple and strong messages always were a part of politics - but in confusing and harsh times there are more people willing to listen to them. Instead of working and coping with a more complex reality many people prefer a simplification of (their) problems.
So in a strange twist the more noise the old school media and Bloggers make - the less they actually support the public. They actually create more confusion and ‘white noise’. And splitting the ‘truth atom’ into even more bit doesn’t create ‘more truth or a better version of reality. But on the other side a big public discussion is better then none or a truly state organized affair like under the Nazi regime or Stalinist Russia.
Life is complex, it sucks and still we have to deal with it. 
More? A BBC opinion piece about the return of the citizen journalist.