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The news is rather old (pun unintended) now after CBS bungled up big time over the forged documents citing preferential treatment of Junior Bush at the National Guard. Conservative bloggers brought down the mighty Dan Rather at CBS News by some matter-of-fact investigating. Bloggers suddenly found themselves pitch forked in the limelight and murmurs of treating blogs as a new form of journalism began springing up. Although the credibility of blog is still largely suspect due to obvious partisanship, their impact on traditional media can no longer be ignored. Trent Lott’s political career came to an abrupt end when bloggers published his racist quotes from previous speeches that the traditional media ignored.
At least in America, they have finally arrived and the political blogs like Washington Monthly, Instapundit, and Wonkette are big influencing factors. Take a look at their site meters and ads on the sidelines; you will get a peek into their popularity. Wired Online documents this change by examining the chaos that blogs have wrought upon the national (American) political scene. Breaking news has been given a new meaning when the authenticity of CBS documents was first questioned even when the broadcast was in progress. No news now can be squashed for lack of an audience or to appease the high command. Any tiny flutter or murmured is posted and debated by at least a dozen blogs and as the issue gains prominence and attracts attention, the number of blogs posting on it and the impact it generates, rises exponentially. Tina Brown has an excellent piece over at Washington Post [via Washington Monthly]. Wonkette, in its usual tongue-in-cheek “potty mouth” style comes up with its own analysis. Funny as usual.
India, unfortunately still lags behind and any article on blogging almost always begins with the definition of blogging. Anything online cannot be expected to create an impact because technically not even 1% of the population is connected to the Internet and those who are do not venture beyond email. Last heard, Pramod Mahajan is running his email and SMS campaign on the silent mode. He has got it all wrong; make sure that everyone who votes is connected and then market your goods through that medium. The day when an Indian blog can take on a national party is, unfortunately in the distant future.
Unfortunately, too much information is not good either and the real crux of the matter can get lost in the entire hullabaloo. For e.g. no one actually questioned the veracity of Bush’s service in National Guard, as Dan Rather wanted to investigate. The documents were forged but the content reflected his supervisor’s opinions, as made clear by his assistant. No one seemed to care about the big picture. CBS is busy trying to clean its internal mess and conservative bloggers are having a field day deriding the Kerry campaign for trying to influence the media. Too bad it wasn’t the liberal bloggers who managed to catch a Bush goof-up but then either they are too many or the Republicans are damn good in covering up their tracks.
by Patrix | on Thursday, September 23rd, 2004 at 11:05 pm | 
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September 24th, 2004 at 12:33 am reply
Given the short attention span of an average American, the side that shouts louder to catch the attention wins. Republicans are historically very good at this. They have been repeatedly successful at deflecting this kind of bad publicity and sending it back towards the accuser. CBS is completely on the defensive, trying gather the shreds of their credibility. So, anything they say or do will be viewed with suspicion by the public because the shouting heads on FoxNews and talk radio tell them to do so.
September 24th, 2004 at 1:34 am reply
Parag - Well said. Republicans sure know to sell themselves well so it is true - its not what you speak rather its how you speak it. BTW what are you doing up so late?
September 24th, 2004 at 2:27 am reply
after reading the first line of this post, i was wondering why you keep on beating around the Bush for the last couple of posts, and was going to comment in those lines, before I found out that this post was in a different line…
Indians are lagging behind all right, but they will catch up for sure, and sooner than most people think, I believe. How much time did it take for India to grow into the IT Giant of the world?
September 24th, 2004 at 9:47 am reply
Patrix: After the Pt. Ravi Shankar concert, we stopped at Starbucks for some coffee at 11pm and then, couldn’t sleep after coming home. Fortunately, Ashwini was asleep and I could get my blog fix after the caffeine fix.
September 24th, 2004 at 11:25 am reply
Som - No matter how much you critisize Bush, its always gonna be less. BTW India may be handling all the back office IT work of the world but I wouldn’t call it an IT Giant…yet.
Parag - thatz cool. I just didn’t think of you as an owl but guess everyone has their day..err..night.