I have some pretty harsh words for the Main Stream Media (MSM) below.

There is a solution for this malaise, and it's ironic that a national audience caught it first on a comedy show.

The solution is "boots on the ground," as Tom Fenton (right) told The Daily Show's Jon Stewart this week.

Bloggers provide that. Not all blogs do. Saying "blogs" or "bloggers" as though they were a unitary whole is as misleading as saying "Internets" or "Web sites."

But we've seen bloggers capture many stories, and even beats, by doing reporting that the MSM wasn't willing or able to do. I'm thinking here of Raed in Iraq and, more recently, Riverbend. (She is now much better than he is, by the way.) I'm thinking of Boingboing and Juan Cole and 100 others, people who've broken stories, created new niches, and done real journalism.

There are many, many bad blogs. There are many popular blogs that are very bad. I'm not saying the one should replace the other.

What we need are business models that will enable willing journalists (like myself) to make decent livings (not great, decent) doing what we love to do -- reporting, writing, editing, researching, listening, being careful.

MSM journalism no longer provides that. With the help of people like Hylton Joliffe, maybe blogging will, in time. I'm proud to be part of the effort.

Want some more ranting? You'll have to click for it.

That's Juan Cole to the left, the blogosphere's Randolph Scott.

All this is in stark contrast to what Tina Brown and her ilk have been doing. Sitting in a studio talking with someone, or waiting in a room for some famous twit to talk to you, is not real journalism. Yet that's about all TV does these days.

Real journalism is hard work. It's lonely work. It's not glamorous. It's expensive, in terms of time which must be paid for. It's risky to both the journalist and the publisher. The risk is not just financial.

How much of this is going on in the U.S. today? How many reporters are putting themselves out on the line, the way brave reporters are in the Middle East, in Africa, in Asia, and in Latin America?

Not enough.

Journalism is not a big money business. I think it was ruined when it became one. It became one when people like Tina Brown found they could become rich and famous by merely sucking up to the rich and famous, and did.

Tom Fenton, on the other hand, is a Mensch. He risked his life to get stories. Tina Brown won't risk a hangnail for one. She's not fit to lick Tom's boots. Neither am I, frankly.

But Fenton and I have more in common than he has in common with Tina Brown. We didn't get into this business to get rich. We got into this business to get the story, to shed some light on the world and, hopefully, to illuminate reality so we might push history forward just a tiny bit.

I've probably told this story before, but my first journalism class at Northwestern was a lecture by the late, great George Heitz, an old newspaper managing editor. He told us, "If you want to make a good living, marry someone with a good job." He told us, "If you are in this school to make a lot of money, we have a wonderful business school down the street -- go there."

The door is still open. I encourage worthless bloggers like Wonkette or Drudge, and worthless "journalists" like Tina Brown to use it.