Juan Cole: DSM and the Revenge of the Bloggers

[G_j]

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m12564&l=i&size=1&hd=0

The Downing Street Memos and the Revenge of the Bloggers
Juan Cole, Informed Comment


Monday, June 13, 2005


When Michael Smith of the London Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1650822,00.html
) wrote about a further leaked British cabinet document on decision-making about the Iraq war in July 2003, he did not simply report the revelations in the document.

Most commentators on the Smith story have missed his open acknowledgment of the role of the blogging world in turning the Downing Street Memo (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000920839 ) and other leaked British documents from a provincial Whitehall story into a world (and American) phenomenon. Smith writes,
<snip>

There has been a growing storm of protest in America, created by last month’s publication of the minutes in The Sunday Times. A host of citizens, including many internet bloggers, have demanded to know why the Downing Street memo (often shortened to “the DSM” on websites) has been largely ignored by the US mainstream media."

If this story had broken in the 1970s, it probably would just have been buried by the mainstream US press and remained an oddity of UK's Fleet Street. But here you have the Times of London actually acknowledging the wind under its sails from the blogging world!
<snip>

Certainly, the end of the story will depend far less on the contemporary equivalents of Katherine Graham and Ben Bradlee, who gave Woodward and Bernstein their heads in uncovering the Watergate scandal, than would have otherwise been the case. Such members of the press and editorial elite used to get to decide whether to bury a scandal or pursue it. Now, that power has been democratized by the world wide web. Bloggers will help to decide the end of the story.