Bloggers will rescue the right

[emad]

Beat the metropolitan elite with the tactics of US conservatives

Iain Duncan Smith
Saturday February 19, 2005
The Guardian

For decades the national conversation in most western countries has been directed by a few talking heads. Newspapers play important roles but all the evidence suggests that broadcasters have possessed the greatest potential to frame public debate. British politicians have known that communicating their message depends upon getting the nod from a small number of powerful figures in the broadcast media.

The editor of BBC1's six o'clock news bulletin can make a minister's day by putting his department's latest announcement at the front of the bulletin. Hearing Huw Edwards say something positive about that afternoon's policy launch will even put a smile on Alastair Campbell's face.

But all of this looks set to change because of the blogosphere. Blogging is a geeky expression for how people use online logs, or diaries, to share their opinions. If a weblog is interesting and informed enough it can reach millions of people at zero cost. Karl Rove, the man George Bush described as the architect of his re-election, recently said that the dominance of America's mainstream media is coming to an end. And Rove credits the Davids of the blogosphere for the humbling of the old media Goliaths. After decades of centralisation, Rove believes that the national conversation is being democratised.

Mr Knowledgeable (and it is usually a Mr) of Smallville, Wyoming can, via his PC, transmit thoughts across the world. Mainstream TV can no longer say what it wants without fear of correction. Online diaries, written by teachers, soldiers and numerous other people with real knowledge of subjects, are fact-checking ill-informed broadcasters. The bloggers have already toppled two of American TV's biggest names.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/weblogs/story/0,14024,1417989,00.html

[hedda_foil]

1. "The bloggers" they speak of are KKKarl's tools.

No way would the right wing blogs be making their well-timed and expensively publicized "discoveries" if they weren't an integral part of the Rovian toolkit. You've got to hand it to the *ucker. He has an amazing grasp of how to manipulate every form of media. But the right has been deeply into the web since they founded Free Republic. And don't even try to tell me that this hasn't been a well-funded operation from the start.

[Meeker Morgan]

2. Don't be siilly, bloggers are...

... vanity sites.

Most are stamp-collectors and the like.

A few are political-conservatives. Ho hum.

[Vickers]

3. All websites are, to a certain extent, vanity sites

Doesn't lessen their (relative) worth.