BILL HOBBS SAYS THE BLOGOSPHERE’S THE THING:

Raines is gone, but the blogosphere isn’t. The NYT – and the rest of Big Journalism – are now being watched, ’round the clock, by bloggers from the political Left, Center and Right, and errors, bias and spin will be exposed.

It’s often said that the press is a free society’s watchdog on its government. But who watches the watchers? Thanks to the Internet and blogging software that has lowered the cost of publishing almost to the vanishing point, the answer to that question is We, The People. As it usually is when things are set right in America.

He’s right — though this cautionary note from Jeff Jarvis bears repeating:

Let’s hope that the blogosphere does not become known as nothing but a land of destruction.

Tearing down people can be deserved. It can be fun. It can be righteous good work.

But if all you do is destroy — and complain and carp and snark — you don’t build, you don’t contribute.

He’s right about that — though the Times and other media outfits are in no position to complain about such an attitude. But as one of the commenters to Jeff’s post notes: “These people destroyed themselves. Nobody went on a witch hunt for Raines or Lott, they dug their own graves and made a lot of enemies all on their own.” (You may want to read all the comments, actually, as there’s an interesting debate going on.)