SPECIAL REPORT: Do Political Bloggers at Newspaper Sites Now Drive 2008 Campaign Coverage?

[EV_Ares]

Illustration by Steve Brodner

By Joe Strupp

NEW YORK Imagine if the Los Angeles Times' Andrew Malcolm had been writing a blog in 1968, when he broke into political coverage. Chances are, that blog would have been the first place the newspaper posted insider reaction to Lyndon Johnson's sudden withdrawal from the race --- and on-the-scene reports from the raucous Democratic convention in Chicago.

It's even possible that long-shot challengers Eugene McCarthy and George Wallace might have gotten more votes in a "grassroots" media environment. Who knows? Richard M. Nixon might have lost the November election, had a mainstream blogger uncovered one of his many dirty tricks.

There would have been more information available to readers, "and sooner," says Malcolm, who has been writing full time for the Los Angeles Times' "Top of the Ticket" blog since June. "Wallace would have done better because he could have reached more people sooner. You would have seen developments sooner."

Today, Malcolm's online reporting and many others' like it do offer such information sooner -- perhaps even too much of it. He is operating in a whole new world in which deadlines are minute-by-minute; reader comment is swift and often severe; and the tools range from audio and video to BlackBerrys and laptops.

"It is 'round the clock, it's demanding," says Malcolm, 64. Not only is the process of delivering political news via blogs a lot faster than traditional models, "it is a lot more unpredictable," he adds.

Yet it remains something newspapers are embracing as the 2008 presidential campaign hits its stride and the primaries loom. Campaign blogs were once left to partisans and non-journalists; now, along with the L.A. Times, at least five other daily papers have assigned to political blogs full-time reporters who post and edit items almost daily. Dozens of other newspapers have reporters posting regularly, on a part-time basis.

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[K Gardner]

1. God.. if ONLY.... anything to drive coverage AWAY from Matthews, Scarbrough,

Blitzer, Crowley and Fixed Noise...

At the very least, if bloggers make enough noise about something, the MSM might be forced to cover it.. or not..:think: