In the political arena, anyway! The New York Times reports that bloggers offer a perspective on the ground, closer to the events that the mainstream media has a hard time replicating.
That the blog now has a firm place in the choreography of national events ‘€” and in elections perhaps more so than in any other cultural exercise ‘€” is a boon to the democratic process, said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance at Oxford University and a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.
‘€œIn a lot of ways they’€™re helping to set the agenda for the mainstream media in fast-moving events like this,’€? Mr. Zittrain said. ‘€œThey just need to be able to produce enough that’€™s credible quickly to give a lead.’€?
In the light of the crowdsourcing announcments of USA Today, I think it may be one more closer step in the evolution of the delivery of news, and represents the inclusion and validation of bloggers as a kind of “media”. CNN, for example, brought in a bunch of bloggers for a giant “blog party” last night covering the mid-term election in the States … which at times, felt like looking at an exhibition at the zoo (“Honey, don’t come too close — they might blog about you”). But many were given a chance to talk on the air as another ‘talking-head’ pundit, often times, with what seemed like equal footing as the other talking-heads.
In other news, political bloggers may also be better looking — which may have been the reason why they were invited to CNN. As reported in the NYT:
Constantine Stavropoulos, the owner of the cafe, said he had closed its doors for the ‘€œblog party,’€? which the network periodically broadcast and streamed online. He said he expected the bloggers ‘€” an attractive bunch, he said ‘€” to linger long after the votes were in.
‘€œBloggers look a lot better than I thought they would,’€? Mr. Stavropoulos said
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