One Canuck's Radio Weblog

  Sunday, 13 June 2004

.< 7:37:15 PM >
Meet Joe Blog

Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they're fast, funny and totally biased [TIME's Top Stories] 'Most of America couldn't have cared less. Until December 2002, that is, when bloggers staged a dramatic show of force. The occasion was Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, during which Trent Lott made what sounded like a nostalgic reference to Thurmond's past segregationist leanings. The mainstream press largely glossed over the incident, but when regular journalists bury the lead, bloggers dig it right back up. "That story got ignored for three, four, five days by big papers and the TV networks while blogs kept it alive," says Joshua Micah Marshall, creator of talkingpointsmemo.com, one of a handful of blogs that stuck with the Lott story.

Mainstream America wasn't listening, but Washington insiders and media honchos read blogs. Three days after the party, the story was on Meet the Press. Four days afterward, Lott made an official apology. After two weeks, Lott was out as Senate majority leader, and blogs had drawn their first blood.'

Time Magazine on the blogging phenomenon. As an aside, one of the digs against blogs is that they are not well written. I'd just like to point out that the second sentence in the first paragraph I've quoted is not a complete sentence.