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1/ People who believe in 'citizen journalism' fundamentally don't understand is that the 'cost' of real information is very high. Finding new facts, and validating their truth, and carrying liability is structurally much more costly than citizens can afford alone.
2/ The famous @stewartbrand quote about 'information wanting to be free' was in reference to the fact that cost of distribution dropping to zero, which it is - but distribution costs is not actually where the expense of real information is.
3/ I am gonna pull the stats, but I am sure that if you look at the financials of the NYT over the decades, the percent of revenue spent on 'distribution' has gone way down, but the percent spent on the newsroom is way way up.
5/ So, yes, punditry - is indeed getting cheaper and cheaper & more ubiquitous. Today, content and commentary are truly the domain of individual citizens. Just don't confuse that with actual journalism / fact finding, which isn't gonna come from 'citizens'.
6/ The challenge today is that with distribution costs at zero, punditry is nearly free to produce end-to-end but real information / journalism is still v expensive. This creates huge business pressure towards more high-margin punditry and less journalism / fact finding.
