[InclinedPlane]

"Does anything in Arrington's background make him better suited to cover technology than a journalism graduate?"

Demonstrably yes. The entire J-school educated mainstream media has had the opportunity to do the story that Arrington has done, and yet they have failed. He has done the work that they have not, and done it well. By those credentials, among his other work, he has proven his suitability to cover technology.

Blogs are not yet a replacement for all of mainstream media, but that is to be expected. Blogs are young, and profitable blogs younger yet (5-10 years at best), whereas the mainstream media is still a multibillion dollar centuries old institution. The fact that blogs are any competition whatsoever to the mainstream media is a shocking condemnation of the current state of mainstream journalism.

[patio11]

The entire J-school educated mainstream media has had the opportunity to do the story that Arrington has done, and yet they have failed.

I think this bears repeating. "A hot new fad sweeping the nation is deceiving your children and scamming customers for well in excess of $100 million per year" doesn't sound out of the purview of the NYT, does it? Instead of doing the ground pounding to shake out a story like that, they mainly get a press release from someone, open the Rolodex and find one of the usual suspects to give a punchy opposing quote for balance, and then publish it.

[nir]

I think you're both reading way too much into the fact TechCrunch did a better job on this story than NYT. It's not unusual that some reporter will find or dig deep enough into a story that others hadn't. It doesn't prove that much.

The Drudge Report broke the Monica Lewinsky story, which nearly cost a US President his job - does this mean The Drudge Report is a better news source than the NY Times?

[InclinedPlane]

The point of the article is that this is a specific example of a larger trend. Have you ever noticed that when the mainstream media covers some science or technology field you happen to have expertise in the coverage is always incredibly shallow and contains several glaring errors? You perhaps labor under the assumption that all of the rest of the media's coverage of subjects you have less independent knowledge of is unbiased, accurate, and thorough. What evidence do you have to support that assumption?

In truth there is very little reporting in the mainstream media these days. Most media conglomerates rest on the advantages of access and consumer inertia. The big papers would rather "report" on their content-free, uncritical exclusive interview with a major figure than actually do the grubby, uninteresting behind the scenes grunt work to break legitimate news.

[patio11]

I would like to take the No Politics rule in response to that question, because my answer would tend to incriminate me.