Safire on "The Depressed Press"

William Safire — unlike, say, Bill O’Reilly — doesn’t seem the slightest threatened by blogs.

On the challenge from bloggers: The “platform” – print, TV, Internet, telepathy, whatever – will change, but the public hunger for reliable information will grow. Blogs will compete with op-ed columns for “views you can use,” and the best will morph out of the pajama game to deliver serious analysis and fresh information, someday prospering with ads and subscriptions. The prospect of profit will bring bloggers in from the meanstream to the mainstream center of comment and local news coverage.