Ah, gadgetry and latest Agile scoop is fine and fun, but would your average blogger do reporting when next Chechnya flares up, or do time-consuming and hazardous research on mafia connections in his southern-Italian hometown?
Reporting of this kind takes time, equipment, connections, travel, bribes - which all translates to money that have to appear somehow.
Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. Blogs work very well for things that you can glean from Press Releases, conferences, and others, hence Engadget and Gizmodo work well.
But local news or even sports requires a lot of elbow grease and footwork. One of my favorite sports blogs is Deadspin. But the only time I can remember them digging for a story is when they were almost able to break the Manny Ramirez steroid story, but their evidence ended up pointed to an average guy who happened to be named Manny Ramirez (not the baseball player). http://deadspin.com/5244230/the-case-of-manny-not-being-mann...
They've been making small inroads into this kind of journalism, but it is far and away the minority.
Reporting of this kind takes time, equipment, connections, travel, bribes - which all translates to money that have to appear somehow.