The mass media press is losing money because it is losing trust. More and more people realize how bad they are at doing their jobs.
They mishandle every story, take the wrong stance on every issue, and can't seem to get into their heads the idea of unbiased reporting of facts. The article even admits they have been unfairly bashing bitcoin
They also seem to be married to obsolete distribution models. Blogs are not necessarily less trustworthy than a printed piece of paper.
As for ad revenue, claiming that its worse for online ads then it was for newspaper ads is ridiculous. Its never been higher as google can attest.
I agree - the media industry has been losing trust for a while now, especially here in the UK. Too many scandals to count, they need to improve their behaviour.
But I do think that there is a role for the media to play in the world today, I don't think blogs can do everything. For example, who can report reliably from a war zone? There are many other examples we could talk about to show that you do need some kind of professional media.
The only reliable reports from a warzone I have ever seen were from bloggers.
Also, a blog =! one dude with no budget.
The huffigton post is not a reliable or trustworthy source, but it a massively funded operation.
I didn't say we don't need news, I said the established news outlets are untrustworthy. However you have the rising of new news media, project veritas for example is a good example. It started out as one guy doing real investigative reporting and it grows, and grows. Now he has a budget and entire teams of undercover agents doing actual honest investigative reporting. While your typical news megacorp trawls the internet for random blog posts and reprints them without verification as if they were fact.
I'm not saying that all news organisations are trustworthy - there are a few that instantly spring to mind that I wouldn't go near.
But as you said, a blog = one dude with no budget. Do you trust everyone you see on the street? Do you implicitly trust what someone is saying despite the fact that you have no idea who they are or what they want you to think?
If you do then fair enough, but that's not for me when I want to know factual information about something.