the career it writers

I diss on the blogosphere a lot for being bad reporters of news, but great reporters of experience and opinion (which in a way is news as well). I guess the difference is journalists have a level of ethics to maintain whereas bloggers can basically do whatever the heck they want.
Anyway, one question I had in my head lately are the career writers. There are bloggers and journalists in IT that I sometimes see or read and I frequently look at their bios or background, just to see where they are coming from. Often, I see they have 15-20 years of writing about IT and journalism and papers and 15+ books written or contributed to.
I don’t get this sometimes. Are they career writers? Do they actually do any IT stuff either in an enterprise or at least at the consumer level? Or do they just play at home, talk to others more knowledgable, and just write about it? Those people kinda bug me…