Old Media Discovers A Boogeyman (wearing pajamas) In Its Closet

USA Today knows the jig is up. Never again can the Old Media dictate truth to us.

"There's no question we all have to take them seriously," says Terence Smith, media correspondent and senior producer at PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. "They do provide, at least potentially, a useful fact-checking function. ... After all, there's an expert out there on everything."

For the old media, "this must have been what it was like for the Catholic Church when movable type was invented," says Jack Shafer, who writes a media column called "Press Box" for the online magazine Slate. "Until then, the Church controlled who would be the scribes."