What bloggers are for

On tonight's Daily Show:

Jon Stewart: Can you seriously talk about what's really going to happen at the debate tomorrow?

Ed Helms: Oh-kay. This is the report I'm going to file. 'The two candidates exchanged pointed barbs about our Iraq policy and the war on terror. Sen. Kerry made strides toward shedding what some of his analysts call a patrician image, yadda yadda yadda. But the president, by his plainspoken words, was more effective in communicating his vision by --'

Stewart: Ed, I'm sorry. You've written your report as though it's already happened. This is --

Helms: I wrote it yesterday.

Stewart: You write your stories in advance, and just put it in the past tense?

Helms: Yea-ahh. We all do. That's -- all the reporters do that.

Stewart: Why?

Helms: We write the narratives in advance based on conventional wisdom, and whatever happens we make it fit that storyline.

Stewart: Why?

Helms: We're lazy? Lazy thinkers?

Stewart: But what happens if actual news happens?

Helms: That's what bloggers are for.

Media criticism in a nutshell -- sad and true.