How Important is the Blogosphere?
This is a question I've been thinking about a lot lately, and will have more to say about from time to time. For the moment, here is the European Bureau Chief for the Fox News Channel, Scott Novell, via Tm Blair:
I think blogging is one of the best things to happen to journalism in decades. It has spawned a whole new range of new and different voices. Despite all its talk of diversity, big media in American tends to be something of a closed shop. Sure, they lack ethnic diversity, but they also lack ideological diversity. That’s precisely why Fox News has been so successful and that’s precisely why some of the most prominent bloggers tend to have a more conservative or libertarian tone to what they write. There’s obviously a market for what they do, or no one would be reading it and talking about it. And I might feel differently if I wrote an opinion column that was parsed by thousands of people every week like (New York Times columnist) Paul Krugman. I think having widely available refutations of major opinion makers is a healthy thing. I like to think it makes them think a little harder before they write something.
I do think, actually, that bloggers--especially Donald Luskin, but also Power Line and others--have had considerable impact in limiting Krugman's mendacity. And he's not the only example.
