Why are blogs important in journalism?
Using blogs, ideas are brought up on blogs, discussed further by others on their blogs, and distributed to yet more blogs. This is somewhat like a publicly-available email discussion. Blogs makes it possible to carry out a conversation in public, with hundreds of thousands of readers. This is no small thing. A few blogs have led the media on several items: • University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds (at instapundit.com) and Washington DC columnist Joshua Marshall’s Talking Points Memo, (an insider’s newsletter on politics in Washington DC at talkingpointsmemo.com) were among the first to notice Trent Lott’s racist comments during Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday bash. They used their highly-visible blogs to spread the news. US Senate Majority Leader Lott was forced to resign. • During the preparations for the US invasion of Iraq, Salam Pax, an Iraqi teenager, maintained a blog. He reported remarkable details about daily life in Baghdad.
Using blogs, ideas are brought up on blogs, discussed further by others on their blogs, and distributed to yet more blogs. This is somewhat like a publicly-available email discussion. Blogs makes it possible to carry out a conversation in public, with hundreds of thousands of readers. This is no small thing. A few blogs have led the media on several items: • University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds (at instapundit.com) and Washington DC columnist Joshua Marshall’s Talking Points Memo, (an insider’s newsletter on politics in Washington DC at talkingpointsmemo.com) were among the first to notice Trent Lott’s racist comments during Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday bash. They used their highly-visible blogs to spread the news. US Senate Majority Leader Lott was forced to resign. • During the preparations for the US invasion of Iraq, Salam Pax, an Iraqi teenager, maintained a blog. He reported remarkable details about daily life in Baghdad. His blog was read by hundreds of thousa
