I do think it’s a relevant fear.  After all, papers and magazines have money to send reporters on long investigative stories and to correspond from far-flung locales.  Websites don’t have those kinds of resources and, what’s more, they tend to have a more personal, analytical bent (rather than objective and empirical).  Of course, yes, I know, nobody is REALLY objective and empirical, but there is a difference between a very smart blogger mostly reading stuff online and giving her take and a reporter who goes out, gets facts, and tries to tell them as objectively as possible.  The question is, as papers and magazines fade, is the latter kind of writer fading too?  Stories like this say maybe not:

As America’s newspapers shrink and shed staff, and broadcast news outlets sink in the ratings, a new kind of Web-based news operation has arisen in several cities, forcing the papers to follow the stories they uncover.

Here it is VoiceofSanDiego.org, offering a brand of serious, original reporting by professional journalists — the province of the traditional media, but at a much lower cost of doing business. Since it began in 2005, similar operations have cropped up in New Haven, the Twin Cities, Seattle, St. Louis and Chicago. More are on the way.

Their news coverage and hard-digging investigative reporting stand out in an Internet landscape long dominated by partisan commentary, gossip, vitriol and citizen journalism posted by unpaid amateurs.