Paul Carr writes in The Guardian:
"Last month, the Boston affiliate of America's Fox TV network ran a news item about a new craze sweeping cyberspace. It turns out that, all over America, young people are using their "computers" to create "websites" full of information about their daily lives. Or, as Fox's breathless reporter put it, "to catalogue the details of their lives on webpages created for them, by them ... just blah-blah-blogging." Yes, that's right. Blah-blah-blogging. Incredible. I wonder what burgeoning technological trend Rupert Murdoch's news machine will uncover next? Mobile tar-tar-telephony? The rah-rah-radio? Far-far-fire? The devil may have the best tunes but it'll be a long time before he works out how to upload them to his aye-aye-iPod.Fortunately in most other sections of the media, attitudes towards blogging - and online journalism in general - couldn't be more different. 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. 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. Just try to imagine any major political organisation recognising blogs in the same way this time last year and you'll realise how far bloggers have gone up in the estimation of those in power. Or, in the case of the DNC, those who will probably be in power next year. Voter fraud notwithstanding.
Blah-blah-blogging may be just a craze to Fox, but to almost everyone else it's already a terrifyingly powerful influence on what the media say and how they say it. And it's an influence that the world's talk radio hosts ignore at their peril."
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