Once upon a time, two people made a bet over which of these two would rank higher for the top five news stories in 2007: blogs or the New York Times.

Dave Winer chose blogs; New York Times executive Martin Nisenholtz opted for his publication. Rogers Cadenhead kept tabs on the five-year old long bet, and noted the blogs edged out the Times, 3-2.

“Associated Press editors and news directors chose the top 10 news stories of the year, which makes it possible to determine who won the bet,” Cadenhead wrote. Since Winer won, the World Wide Web Consortium should see a check from Nisenholtz arrive.

Though Winer won this head to head matchup, neither blogs nor the Times came out ahead of other major media outlets in searches on Google. Also, another non-media site trumped bloggers and Times reporters, said Cadenhead:

Wikipedia, which was only one year old in 2002, ranks higher today on four of the five news stories: 12th for Chinese exports, fifth for oil prices, first for the Iraq war, fourth for the mortgage crisis and first for the Virginia Tech killings.

“Our most trusted source on the biggest news stories of 2007 is a horde of nameless, faceless amateurs who are not required to prove expertise in the subjects they cover,” Cadenhead wrote.

Despite that, people are linking to Wikipedia in numbers sufficient to help it climb the search rankings. If people see Wikipedia as being that authoritative, maybe Wikipedia should have earned the proceeds of that bet.