at what point is it news?

I, like many others, get much of my industry news by RSS feed these days, but here are a few interesting stories that stand out because I read them in print or heard them on the radio first = suddenly elevated rumors into credible news. Conventional wisdom has been that traditional media often looks to sources like the Drudge Report and TechCrunch to sniff out tomorrow's news headlines, but recently the line between the two (online/blogs and traditional media/news journalism) seems increasingly blurred.

• Foley Story Wasn't Reported, Until It Was, National Public Radio. How ABC News broke the Foley Page Scandal story online, which caught the attention of former teenage pages who then proceeded to send in enough incriminating IM/email evidence to move the story over to prime time.
• Terry Semel's long pause, The Economist. The impact of sloppy betas and what is considered too long to expect from idea to execution in an entrepreneurial culture. The tone of this piece is quite "bloggy" for this publication. Not sure if that's a good thing.
• Google poised to net YouTube, The Sunday Times UK. Granted that the details are still sketchy, but it will be interesting to see who will end up being the moron.