It’s amusing how “professionals” who took relatively easy courses in news writing, editing and reporting consider themselves as experts in most fields, yet those of us who studied calc, quantitative methods, econometrics, forecasting and such aren’t qualified to make public commentary in our area of expertise.

As a risk econometrician who spent two years as a journalism major and interned in a major metro paper, I switched degree paths once I discovered the lack of substance and the serious absence of ethics in journalism. Doctored quotes are the norm, false confidence about a subject matter typical, and intended slant expected.

What Williams and his underqualified peers should understand is that their profession only existed when there was an economic incentive for the centralization of information collection and dissemination (e.g. newspapers and television stations requiring significant capital). This environment permitted “news collectors” to emerge as a quasi-professional class and facilitated the rise of information second-handers as a dominant form. Pretty faces with deep voices became self-declared experts, giving rise to an entire class of high self-esteem individuals like Dan Rather who lacked any material qualifications.

Now that first-handers (business executives, economists, scientists, technologists, politicians, etc.) can replicate the functionality of a newspaper with a few clicks of a mouse in a blog subscription, superior information from first-handers makes the diluted content from journalists unnecessary. And given the proclivity of journalists to now slant and misrepresent the content, they shouldn’t be terribly surprised that their profession will likely cease to exist in less than a dozen years.

Certainly, the need for news aggregation will continue. However, it is something software is already facilitating. For news stories requiring a human touch, low-cost news editing functionality is already available and utilized in nations like India, China and South Korea. The era of puffed up pretty news readers and chain-smoking angry newswriters is over.

It’s interesting that the market is so large for repackaging and interpretation of news stories. It appears that the market is hungry for something that journalists don’t provide.

Geez, doesn’t it sound like Brian Williams feels threatened by the blogsphere?

Memo to Mr. Williams - ordinary people are looking for the truth, not your interpretation of what the truth is. You’re a dinosaur, and if the press does not clean up its act, you’ll go the same way they did.