Blogs and the Blogging Bloggers Who Blog Them

"Not only are major news organisations rolling out blogs of their own, but in the past 12 months the influence of bloggers over their print, television and radio counterparts has grown massively," observes Paul Carr. "Consider a decision made by organisers of this year's Democratic National Convention (DNC), next month in Boston. So keen are John Kerry's men to get their message through to the people of Blogistan that for the first time they have issued press accreditation to political bloggers." Carr notes that the impact of blogging is especially noticeable at America's newest radio network, Air America Radio. Not only do the network's hosts frequently cite news and other information gleaned from bloggers, many of their listeners tune in via their Internet audio feed rather than via the airwaves. "The effect of this is to guarantee a large web-savvy audience for the station, an audience for whom it is perfectly natural to visit the shows' official blogs and to comment on what they're hearing, as they're hearing it," Carr observes.