ONE COMPLAINT ABOUT THE BLOGOSPHERE is that bloggers lack the news judgment of trained Big Media professionals. But Drew Curtis of Fark has noticed that this doesn’t seem to make much difference:

Don’t get me wrong. I like oddball news as much as anyone. In fact, I make a decent living showcasing a daily collection of silly news, offbeat items, and real news with amusing headlines on my website, Fark.com, which attracts 3.5 million unique visitors each month. What’s scary, though, is that the ratio of filler news to real news is now so high that the content of Fark and major news websites is often nearly identical. That should never happen because, in theory, mass media outlets are staffed by full-time, serious journalists who have better things to do.

He has some thoughts on why things work out this way.