Tina Brown writes in the Washington Post:
"We are in the Eggshell Era, in which everyone has to tiptoe around because there's a world of busybodies out there who are being paid to catch you out -- and a public that is slowly being trained to accept a culture of finks. We're always under surveillance; cameras watch us wherever we go; paparazzi make small fortunes snapping glamour goddesses picking their noses; everything is on tape, with transcripts available. No matter who you are, someone is ready and willing to rat you out. Even the rats themselves have to look over their shoulders, because some smaller rat is always waiting in the wings. Bloggers are the new Stasi. All the timidity this engenders, all this watching your mouth has started to feel positively un-American."

My initial thought is this; if I wrote that someone in particular was like a member of the Stasi I could get sued by that person, but it's not actionable to tar a group of millions with a slur like that. Secondly how many bloggers are getting paid? Finally, who pays to read that kind of stuff in a major newspaper? I can think of at least a dozen bloggers who write better and boy is it going to be fun reading their responses to this... I thought the beauty of newspapers was that there was somebody on staff who acted as an editor.