Freewheeling 'bloggers' are rewriting rules of journalism

[leQ]

USA Today

Bloggers were in large part responsible for a change of leadership in the Senate last year. When Majority Leader Lott, a Mississippi Republican, remarked at a birthday party for retiring Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina that the nation might have been better off had Thurmond won his segregationist campaign for president in 1948, the major media largely ignored it.

But bloggers stirred up enough outrage on the Internet that the story eventually landed on newspaper front pages and Lott was forced to resign his post.

Members of the nation's political-media establishment are taking notice.

"There's no question in my mind that political bloggers are a major new development," says Ellen Miller, a longtime political activist and Washington lobbyist who reads blogs. "It takes the media out of the hands of the corporate world and puts it into the hands of guys with computers."

[Demeter]

1. Hold on to your hat, honey, you ain't seen nothing yet!

The power of the press and the hierarchy that monopolizes it is over. We aren't ever going back, either. Free men make themselves free.
That goes double for us women.

[bleedingheart]

11. welcome to du and I love your username!!!

[Robb]

2. The sad part is

...you still need a mainstream journalist to "break" a story. Maybe not forever, but that's still the way it is now.

Bloggers and internet news grunts do all the back-work, and then a single shining star in mainstream media breaks the story -- or kills it, throwing in words like "kooks" or "internet conspiracy theorists".

The "tipping point" on this has not yet been reached.

[Carni]

6. Boy, you're not kidding!

I would like to have a nickel for everytime I have researched and posted something on the net and then six months later I see it in a "respected news source"

Of course we do get the distinct honor of being called idiots and crackpots for our troubles (prior to the mainstreamers copying our material of course) SUCH A DEAL! NOT! :(

[NashVegas]

10. Actually

I think what you need isn't so much a mainstream journalist, but a capitalist one. Money talks.

[supernova]

3. Hello?

Ellen Miller, a longtime political activist and Washington lobbyist who reads blogs. "It takes the media out of the hands of the corporate world and puts it into the hands of guys with computers."

Ummm, plenty of FEMALES are also bloggers. Computers aren't strictly a male activity. Sheesh. This is the eve of 2004 people.

[dreissig]

4. Thank Ellen for Sharing

The word "guys" may or not imply masculine gender. However, Ellen Miller doesn't sound like she's given it much thought.

[Bandit]

9. In this Orwellian world we live in Guys is generic so is Dude

It sounded like she used the term in a generic manner to describe everyone. I know she coulda shoulda used persons or people or many other correct terminoligies but hey it is the times we live in. If we (not me) can call Bush* a respected world leader anything is up for grabs.

[Roon]

5. Ha-Ha

And they are saying this like it's a bad thing.The Internet is starting to render the whore media usless in controlling the masses. Like Alex Jones says:We are a controlled society, the information you are getting is controlled. Well, this is beginning not to be the case anymore. I love it.

I have newswires,blogs in my bookmarks, and DU LBN as my news source.Believe me, if Bush could turn off the Net here in America, he would. For now, the Internet is going to be a big thorn in his side and for future Administrations. Take that!

Signed,
In The Know

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. If they find a way they will regulate it

to make sure you and I do not find alternate sources

[Dover]

8. The only "rule" of journalism I see in evidence is...if reality ain't

conducive to the Bush regime's "reality"....change it. Propaganda rules, and silence is golden.