Can Bloggers Save Journalism?

And while newspapers continue to lose readers as fast as trees in autumn shed their leaves, a new journalistic landscape is taking shape. There are fewer professional reporters reporting to fewer seasoned editors. But as the traditional journalistic gate-keepers retreat, the Internet is swelling with millions of bloggers and new forms of online publishing.

For many, this is cause for alarm. But one of the blogosphere's — and print journalism's — brightest lights, Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic, makes some bold claims for blogs in a new essay. He says the best kind of blogging could lead to a "golden era for journalism."

Is he right? This hour, On Point: The state of blogging and the fate of journalism.

You can join the conversation. Where do you get your news? Do you read blogs? What's lost, and what's gained, in an era of shrinking newspapers and booming blogs? Tell us what you think.Guests:

Andrew Sullivan, a senior editor at The Atlantic and author of the widely-read blog The Daily Dish. His essay "Why I Blog," in which he foresees a new "golden era for journalism," appears in The Atlantic's November issue. He's a former editor of The New Republic and author of several books, most recently "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How To Get It Back."

Nicholas Lemann, dean of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a regular contributor to The New Yorker. In 2006 he wrote an essay for The New Yorker on blogging and online journalism titled "Amateur Hour." His most recent book is "Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War."

Tina Brown, founder and editor in chief of The Daily Beast. She is the former editor of Tatler, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Talk magazines, and is the author of “The Diana Chronicles.”

More links:

David Carr mourns old media's decline in his New York Times column this morning:

It’s been an especially rotten few days for people who type on deadline. On Tuesday, The Christian Science Monitor announced that, after a century, it would cease publishing a weekday paper. Time Inc., the Olympian home of Time magazine, Fortune, People and Sports Illustrated, announced that it was cutting 600 jobs and reorganizing its staff. And Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher in the country, compounded the grimness by announcing it was laying off 10 percent of its work force — up to 3,000 people.... The day before, the Tribune Company had declared that it would reduce the newsroom of The Los Angeles Times by 75 more people, leaving it approximately half the size it was just seven years ago....

He goes on to note:

The blogosphere has had its share of news breaks, but absent a functioning mainstream media to annotate, it could be pretty darn quiet out there.