Quote, unquote: The internet is improving/ruining journalism. Talk among yourselves

If we can agree that the internet, by altering the underlying economics of the news business, has thinned the ranks of professional journalists, then the next question is straightforward: has the net created other modes of reporting to fill the gap? The answer, alas, is equally straightforward: no.

-- author and blogger Nicholas Carr, staking out one side of the interesting Economist debate about the impact of  the internet on the quality of journalism. 

Jay Rosen, author, blogger and journalism professor at New York University, takes the other side and says in part:

The internet is improving journalism by driving towards zero the costs of getting it to people, and by vastly reducing the capital requirements for quality production. This has opened the market to more players, allowing more ideas to be tried.