Here’s a statement of the obvious from Daniel Okrent, former NY Times ombudsman:

Blogs will overcome mainstream media as a source of news unless traditional media organizations successfully transfer the integrity of their brands onto the Internet, the former ombudsman of The New York Times says.

Is the game already over? A number of newspapers are stumbling in their efforts to incorporate blogs into their coverage maps, because they are hung up with old rules of workflow and editing. I particularly like the one newspaper that has separate blogging systems-- one for staffers (reporters and columnists) and another for consumer contributors. Who dreamed up that IT nightmare?

The window for newspapers is rapidly closing. The social community notions of Web 2.0 fall smack in the middle of what most newspaper used to be about. Get with it, or get out of the way.