Blogging Politics

In what should be the only time I ever link to an article in the World Peace Herald (as well known as Talon News), they carry a UPI story about bloggers that's pretty good:

"We've been looking at blogs for about a year," Glance said. "There was some hope that the blogosphere would help bridge the different opinions in America, but what we are seeing is in an election year, it was divisive online and there was a strong tendency for separation of differences."

Conservative blogs apparently were the most influential sites, generating huge flows of traffic to right-leaning news organizations, such as the National Review magazine and Fox News television. The bloggers' links also pushed up the readership numbers for publications such as The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal's online Opinion Journal and The Washington Times, Glance said.

Other experts said the trend is likely to continue, and it is starting to shape the way businesses are perceived, too, not just politicians.

Scott Anthony has particularly prescient quote:

"A small number of people used to determine what was, or was not, newsworthy. Now, it is an online collective that says this is interesting, or not interesting, news."

Newspapers should embrace the blogosphere (and some do) as they send more readers to their sites then they could ever get through advertising.