You make a lot of good points but overstate Groklie's influence on the professional press. It came down to a few journalists who wanted to present themselves to their audiences as open source activists. Serious media didn't care.
A few days ago, I was quoted on Google's $900M bid for Nortel's patents by the Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, BBC News, law.com, and on Android's patent problems by Bloomberg. I started my FOSS Patents blog only a year ago. Did Groklaw ever get quoted by media like that? I can't remember having seen that ever. That doesn't mean that it hasn't happened, but I'm not aware of any example.