As newspapers are funded by private companies they can be accused of avoiding to publish information which may damage their revenue streams, independent bloggers often do not have this issue so can be much more free in what they publish which is ultimately good for democracy. In addition to this journalists may vastly distort the truth in their reporting in order to satisfy advertisers which seek certain demographics, whereas independent bloggers do not have this concern.  A consequence of online freedom is of course that anyone can publish anything but it should be down to the reader to decode what has been blogged and make up their own mind as to its accuracy, it is demeaning to suggest that consumers of news information are simply passive consumers.  Professional journalists, even when based in an official setup and with a code of ethics, are not entirely guilt free in regards to publishing inaccurate information either, there are many instances where false information has been published, for example many journalists reported the potential link between MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) vaccination and Autism in a sensationalized way which did not entirely relate to the research and which, as a result, caused a huge number of children not being immunized 1. Perhaps the most famous recent example where journalists have behaved unethically is the phone-hacking scandal in the UK 2.  To call blogs ‘parasitic’ is also insulting and unfair. Many of them do their own research and cover issues not in the mainstream media. It’s not unique to blogging to discuss the work of others, and indeed many newspapers do so 3 So what’s the difference?  1 Deer, B. (2011) The MMR-Autism Scare: An Elaborate Fraud. [online] [accessed 13th June 2011]  2 BBC, (2011) Phone Hacking: US Senator Calls for News Corp Probe [online][accessed 2nd September 2011]  3 Online Journalism Review (2007) Are blogs a 'parasitic' medium? [online][Accessed on 2nd September 2011]