Where will people turn?

Paradox at the Left Coaster thinks that, once the results of the war sink in, people will desert the mainstream media and turn to the blogosphere for their news.

The Iraq war, however, offers no avenue of escape. None. When the day finally comes when it truly has to sink in to the American public that we’ve lost the war and that all has been utter futility in only making us manifestly less safer, well, the hell to pay will never be fully recovered from, not hardly, not for corporate “journalism.”

The blogosphere and alternative media are growing by leaps and bounds because corporate “journalism” is often so clownishly bad, true. But the consequences of the Iraq war will vault the new publishing realms of blogging and alternative media into a new stratosphere of credibility and attention. Not a moment too soon, either.

Somehow, I doubt that. They may well desert the mainstream media news. Indeed, I think they already are. Look at how newspaper circulation is going down. But, I doubt huge numbers will turn to the blogosphere. The mainstream media has managed to paint bloggers as pimply faced teenage sex-maniacs living in rat infested basements and eating uncooked TV dinners in the minds of most people who don't already attend to the blogs. People are either going to stop getting news or they're going to get it from things like the Jon Stewart show. The latter is not all bad, but for many, the only source will be Jay Leno or, worse still, Rush.