"Be the Tallest Dwarf"

That was Chris Anderson's recommendation to anyone running a niche media site, cited in a TechCrunch blogpost that argued that old media companies should go even farther and recognize that the era of control is over, and that users are as interested in talking to each other as in reading journalism handed down from on high. This is completely true. But it's also completely true, as Howard Kurtz writes in his latest Washington Post media column that "the economics of the Web, for now, won't support a staff that can hold public officials accountable across the region and still cover every Nationals game." So embrace the new reality, but do so without arrogance, because it comes at a price.