I read the CyberTimes article you mentioned and it does raise some interesting points. I'm just playing devil's advocate with these comments and don't necessarily feel one way or the other. (In many instances I probably haven't been able to figure out quite how I feel.)

(1) Re: the apparent embracing of the personal pronoun in a journalist's articles: when does the piece stop being a report and become an op/ed piece. The article even mentions the convention of "objectivity." Is that something to be discarded? Ponnuru, of the National Review says the "medium lends itself to analysis with attitude." Again, is it an objective report or an opinion piece. Am I watching Jim Lehrer moderate between Shields and Gigot or am I reading a factual account without any pundit's two cents worth of opinion? Are all journalistic organs, be they left wing/right wing /reform party-sympathetic, exempt from sticking to facts? Then again, is "analysis with attitude" just another term for slant? I suppose it is.

(2) Re: "the ability to be very irreverent about all aspects" of the presidential campaign. Are we to equate irreverent with objective? Does being irreverent exonerate the journalist from any responsibility in reporting? The quote is attributed to a Washington Post reporter so I hope he isn't pleased with Web journalists' ability to be irreverent about the campaign. Unless all of these news "magazines" are spin-offs of The Onion.

(3) Re: releasing exit-poll data prematurely. Well, the traditional tv medium jumped on that bandwagon as well, with allusions to the outcome, if not outright poll statistics. I don't know if there's any way of deterring this. People like to know who the winners and losers are. And if you or your site know that information, how difficult to withhold it and how foolish in terms of hits at your site. As the Times article says, a web magazine writer is virtually unscoopable. How it affects whether or not someone casts his ballot is another story.

(4) Re: that the Web doesn't feel avant garde anymore. No, it really doesn't. We are saturated with ads for websites through all other media, luring us onto the web for airline tickets, groceries, insurance, personal investing. Nothing avant garde about priceline.com when you hear it advertised on 1010 Wins or see William Shatner singing on a tv commercial. But, being avant garde is probably not as lucrative as being mainstream in this instance and I would guess that is what most dot.coms are about. Business is business. If only a handful of people access the Web than the medium, as a news source, is pretty limited in its audience. How do Web magazines/journals measure their circulation? By hits, by registrations?

(5) Re: "an accountability factor," having an audience/reader check a writer's documentation. Excuse me but I don't have time nor inclination to check the writer's documentation. Isn't that what editorial scrutiny and fact checkers are for? How interactive does the reading experience have to be, anyway? If I can't trust the reporter to be factual, and I tend to trust reporters because I'm too lazy to scrutinize the veracity of all of their facts, than why would I want to get my information from a source that is unreliable? It's another thing to differ in opinion from you and to e-mail back with my own take on the issue, but if I have to write back because I discovered that the irrefutable facts are different . . . that's too much work.

Well, don't get me wrong. I think the immediacy of news on the Web is great. Especially if it's accurate. Maybe some of these reporters will evolve into opinion gurus and become celebrities known for their scathing irreverence and emotional immediacy. Kind of like e-based Sally Jesse Raphaels' or Oprahs'. Too soon to tell.