Everytime the hullabaloo about journalism vs.

  Everytime the hullabaloo about journalism vs. webloggers surfaces I think of Michael Lewis’ book (Next:  The Future Just Happened) and Jonathan Lebed.  Jonathan was a kid that used his access to information networks to play the market by Wall Street’s rules.  He analyzed stocks, took a position in those stocks, and published his analysis with enthusiasm on message boards and on his personal website.  He made nearly a million $$ doing this.
The SEC was mortified that an individual dare play Wall Street’s game.  So they attempted to shut him down — lean on him.  He wasn’t impressed.  He had done his homework on every stock he talked about.  In fact, the SECs own rules now dictate that every bit of corporate communication on earnings etc., must be made available to the public at the same time it is disclosed to analysts.  So, it was almost impossible for them to claim that if an individual like Lebed understands how to do financial analysis, he couldn’t do it based on publicly accessible data.  In other words: the insiders on the street don’t have any real legal advantage over individuals when doing stock analysis. 
Of course, the SEC didn’t like this at all.  People like Blodget and Grubman who do this type of thing were respected analysts at top Wall Street firms.  How dare a kid attempt to do what they do!   In the end, he gave them back about 1/3 of the million $$ he made to get them to drop the case.   
Think of all the professions that make money via the mystique of access to privileged information.  What happens when the walls and barriers to that information fall?  What happens when individuals can publish what they find, with analysis, to a global audience?  What if people find this low cost advice and informaiton actually is good or at least 90% of what they need (or in Lebed’s case it was actually 90% as bad as Grubman’s and Blodget’s but on a much smaller scale)?  [John Robb’s Radio Weblog]

Here’s another example of why the SEC whould be abolished.