I came across a story this morning and I couldn’t help but be reminded of our round table discussion/rant from Episode 20 when we talked the credibility of bloggers vs. professional journalists. Apparently, back in 2002, software developer/RSS and Blog pioneer, Dave Winer made a wager via longbets.com with Martin Nisenholtz, an executive from the New York Times that in 5 years, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times’ Web site in a Google search of the top five news stories of 2007.

So this year, author, Rogers Cadenhead did the math and concluded that blogs are indeed edging out the the NYT. However, an unforeseen contender has entered the picture and is beating out both competitors in this bet. Yes, Wikipedia (only a year old in 2002) is PWNing them both.

When they made the bet, the two sides were: amateurs you trust for information you want, or unbiased, accurate, and coherent journalism from an authoritative source. What it’s come down to in this backwards world of ours is that the masses prefer to get their information from “a horde of nameless, faceless amateurs who are not required to prove expertise in the subjects they cover.”

I think the dying words of Deep Throat said it best: “Trust No One.“