Has ‘the stage’ lost its value, RSS feeds a quick substitution?

Have RSS feeds become a feature to bring respect back to the stage that is online journalism. Each mainstream news source boasts of RSS feeds on their website covering each aspect of the news. With these feeds being published in all types of blogs, the news source receives a direct link to their website. In accepting this feature has news sources accepted that they must play second fiddle in the blogosphere?

Breaking news offers a service where one can link RSS feeds from their own website to Twitter, Facebook and Bebo. It also displays the RSS link on their main webpage. RTÉ also offers an RSS service which is advertised in a less sensational manner than that of breakingnews. SKY news offers a detailed instruction on how to insert RSS feeds as well as its more specialised feeds.

Terry Heaton has penned an interesting article entitled; Local Media in a Postmodern World Protecting the Stage. Heaton states; Life in a band is life on a stage, and the stage is always more important than the band.

He draws a metaphor between his career in Music and online journalism.

The author states a very interest point with online journalism that; the audience are no longer looking at the stage, there looking at each other. This creates a scenario where the only way to transmit the message is through conversation, thus creating a network where the stage is irrelevant to many.

Are we in a situation where news outlets are beginning to go with the flow instead of fighting the tide?