Friday, November 22, 2002 :::
At the Yale Law Blog Conference, it's been suggested that blogdom won't compete with the mainstream media unless it gets more centralized. I'm not convinced.
Just through the vast number and interconnectedness of the blogosphere, stories spread. It's true that this is more the case, at least for now, for analysis than for news; most of the stories that spread right now are pointers to Slate or the Washington Post, rather than to something a blogger has uncovered. But if you're interested in a "niche subject" that doesn't get covered by the mainstream press -- the Yale Law blogger conference, for example -- you can find a blogger or two or six who follows that sort of thing. And if something more universal -- such as fact-checking problems in a Bellesiles book -- gets reported on a web-site with thirty readers, ten of whom have their own blogs, it'll quickly be on ten more sites, from which it will continue to spread.
We do have some concentration points, too, such as Glenn Reynolds. But I don't think we necessarily need more of them, or more powerful ones. Interesting information will travel. It always has, even in communities less interconnected than ours.
Labels: fact checking
::: posted by Steven at 1:56 PM
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