Blogs of the left and right take heed: assassinate the MSM at your peril

Franklin Foer of the New Republic Online makes a good point when he says we bloggers — on the left particularly — should avoid attacking the mainstream media.

I agree for slightly different reasons. Although there are MSM outlets I don't prefer, the Wall St. Journal being one, the blogs need the foot soldiers of the MSM to dig up the stories we unmercilessly cite, even as we trash some and elevate others.

As Foer said, the MSM reports are the grist for the bloggers' mills. They are our foils, whether we publish a blog or thrive off of others.

We need them to thrive. We can criticize them, light fires under them from time to time, but we should never seek to destroy them. That is reactionary and dangerous.