For news firms seeking survival or sustainable operations, you'll see your "value add" opinion pieces consume more of the content with less actual news. This is WaPo's strategy [0].
[0] http://digiday.com/publishers/washington-post-grew-digital-s...
I think there's some truth to this. I think there's also a need for accreditation or other validation/reputation services, not to serve as a gatekeeper, but to assist in helping people determine which sources are likely worthwhile to listen to. If the vetting needs to be done for each person on a per-author basis, that can be overwhelming, not dissimilar to the paradox of choice.
In some ways this may end up looking similar to existing publishers, though with a little less tight-coupling between author and publisher. It's pretty clear there are large changes underway.
In order to provide value, newspapers need to provide exclusive value-add, which in many cases includes opinion pieces. Opinion pieces allow experts in the area to link many different news items together to provide a more holistic view of the news item.
Anyone can tell me that 5 Coalition soldiers were killed by an IED, but it takes an opinion piece by an expert in counter insurgency tactics to provide context about how that might represent a shift in tactics/approach by a group.