Has the national political debate become clogged with blogs? Some who work for or analyze the oldline media think so, but rarely put it in so many words. They argue that the news media’s roles as gatekeeper and agenda-setter were valuable services to their customers and to the Republic, and that these roles are now increasingly being filled by partisan hacks.

By which they do not mean eight out of 10 metro-desk editors and news producers from the 1970s on.

Here’s an interesting discussion of the issue from the Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The kicker:

Chase Martyn of iowaindependent.com said the progressive Web site was established and funded by the Washington-based Center for Independent Media to provide fair, factual news accounts guided by a code of ethics.
“There are a lot of examples where bloggers and online writers aren’t always held accountable for what they write,’’ he said. ‘‘They’re sometimes reckless and careless about how they report facts and what they choose to report.
‘‘We . . . believe pretty strongly that online news still can be legitimate news and our goal is to combat the perception that all bloggers are just sort of hacks who sit in their basements and write what they think,’’ Martyn said.

Now who would think that?