Good bloggers keep good journalists honest; good journalists read blogs and find sources and stories. There's constant foot traffic across this border.
Trouble arises when people don't step across the line. The rise of blogging has opened up a wide, rich new channel of information and perspectives from people who previously had no publishing platform. But it doesn't offer any guarantee that truth will prevail. It's not as simple as "We can fact-check your ass." Sometimes, the distributed fact-checking of the blogosphere works well (as in the CBS Guard memos saga); in other cases, it breaks down (the clear facts that discredit the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" -- facts assembled mostly by newspaper pros -- haven't made much difference, and the blogosphere, split ideologically, hasn't been able to help make the facts stick).
You'll find blog coverage of this session by:
Rebecca MacKinnon
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