One of the perennial questions about the role of blogging and bloggers in the evolving media landscape is what standards for responsibility, accountability and ethics one basically, is one of credibility.

The argument is often framed as a comparison of the reliability of traditional-pre-internet, if you will-news media and their contributors, with that of the blogosphere and bloggers. Proponents of traditional media often argue that the formal structure and processes of gathering, vetting, and delivering news, information and opinion provide the kind of quality control for their “product” that one can’t expect from the fast and loose, editor-less world of blogging.

Having worked in both media to some extent in US –my first reaction to such discussions or arguments is frustration. Any discussion that frames this is as pure “editor-or” proposition is not dealing with reality; no single medium operates in a vacuum; the media for the collection and dissemination of information interact with each other, and always have.

The days of newspapers as the sole provides for those services are gone. Even before the internet, radio and television played a complementary role to print media. News of coups, riots earthquakes and other events-very often broken by media outlets such as BBC World Services, CNN and so on. These have come to play a very integral role in the lives of lot of people around the world. We often find out about change in Government and acts of God from these news services. The next days, newspapers fill in the picture with news, views and interviews. In the same way, blogs (other related tools such as micro blogging services like twitter) now extend the spectrum of information media to an even more immediate level. For example, for several days last year, the only information- particularly pictures coming out of the troubled South Asian country of Myanmar was to be found on blogs and other similar sites.

Of course, it is the more inclusive nature of blogging that is really being alluded to above that is often the root of much more the critique of blogging. The point made is that since anybody and his dog can start a bog and start “reporting” and expression opinions, we should not trust anything that is posted on a blog. I exaggerate that starkness of that argument, but that is what it boils down to.

The main argument, as it is more soberly made, is that traditional news media organization have a structure in place for researching, confirming, and double checking information before it becomes part of the public records; the implication being that blogs don’t and therefore their content is by definition of lower quality and less credible. As I see it, there are two problems with that picture.

Firstly, while bloggers may not have a staff of editors and fact checkers, blogs live on a very tight feedback loop and have to compete in a very tight feedback loop and have to compete in a very competitive ecosystem where any mistake are almost instantaneously noticed and are mercilessly debunked or validated. The only major “scandals” involving fake content blogs that have a wide readership have been in the US. For example, “Lonely Girl 15” briefly becomes a huge phenomenon – till it was discovered that the person putting out a detailed look at her life was not a real lonely girl but an actress performing for professionally-produced videos. On the other hand, every year, one or two major newspaper in the US has had to own up about writers who had fabricated stories.

I’m talking about internationally-respected icons of traditional media. In some places consumers of media have a whole other layer of awareness of the shortcomings of traditional media that needs to be factored in. As for local media, I personally know enough journalists of such high integrity and professionalism that I feel if there is any hope for traditional media in a changing global media landscape, it s with these Third Word Profession. The addition of the new bridge of concerned amateurs and want to be citizen journalists, if nothing else, can provide the much-needed infusion of a new wave of idealism and a check on the traditional media.

The blogosphere and other “new media” have added a new dimension to the media landscape, with a whole new set of strength and weakness. As both old and new media have to share the information collection landscape and compete for audience, they will have work out what roles they will play in this brave new world- and how they will check and balance each other.