I agree with where you are coming from, but I think we owe it to ourselves to be the biggest critics of our own ideas and positions, which is why I posted the other day about the excellent journalist-and-blogger Robert Peston as a counterpoint to the FAIL of the Steve Jobs heart attack lie: http://tinyurl.com/4vboro

I would caution against thinking that ‘amateurs’ are less biased than journalists. The opposite is often true.

The curator role is very important, and I think deserves another category in your typology of bloggers as synthesisers. I see myself in this area – gathering links, summarising, simplifying and synthesising analysis about a topic.

What’s interesting is that this used to correspond in some way to the role of editor, and still does in some publications; but many editors these days play purely technical/managerial roles rather than being truth seekers themselves.

But ultimately, as you point out, where we are headed is reputation / trust based sharing of news, links and info within our social networks. You’re spot on there.

I think the key difference between the old and the new journalism is that the curator is amateur, passionate, unbiased. Doesn’t work for FOX News, as an example, regardless of your politics. Nor for the National Enquirer.

You see, I want news “recommendations” from people I trust, rather than news shoved down my throat.

What would work best, in a kind of symbiosis, would be if the velocity fiends FED the curators, and then we would learn eventually to camp out on the curators’ sites, because there, the stories would be vetted.

But then, haven’t we just re-invented traditional journalism?

No, because curators have different mandates when not working for a press. Make sense?

Fascinating riff, JP. Glad that you’re on the case.