We attended our first Commonwealth Club event last night, which was put on by Inforum, a hip, young division of the club. The topic was about how San Francisco is setting the stage for new media, and the guest speakers were "four white dudes," SFist's Brock Keeling, Muni Diaries' Jeff Hunt, and The Bold Italics' Michael Maness, with Twitter's Robin Sloan moderating.
Based on our extensive notes typed into our smartphone (we didn't tweet our notes though. Sorry, Robin!), readers this day and age prefer that blogs/news outlets be subjective and have a point of view (because they don't trust supposed "objectivity" anymore), and that readers like to have advocates/guides/curators finding the stories for them. Giving readers the ability to provide ideas and feedback is also key. The panelists also acknowledged they do rely on the Chronicle for information.