An example of what blogging can accomplish ...

The blog Firedoglake is a political blog, mainly focused now on the Scooter Libby trial but having had foci such as the Lieberman - Lamont tussle in Connecticut and the possibility of Karl Rove's complicity in the Plame leak.  The several main bloggers are all knowledgeable and good writers, and the community of commenters is large, engaged and over time has become networked into various other circles of online (and offline) activist circles.

Just to remind some people of who we are and what we do. . . we're a progressive movement site, an activist community, an organizing hub, a new media entity and a place for kickass, smart, fun and funny political and pop cultural conversation. Many of you are just getting to know us through our coverage of the Scooter Libby trial, in which Dick Cheney takes a starring (so far offstage) role. You may not know, however, that we've been doing much, much more. We even raised more than half a million dollars for great, grassroots progressive candidates last election cycle, many of whom are primed to help change the world in the new congress.

We're principally fronted by some wonderfully passionate, intelligent women, backed up by a stable of other fantastic regular and guest feature writers offering wit and wisdom on matters like gay issues, latino issues and immigration, the African American perspective, labor, economics, civil rights, foreign policy, the environment and much, much more. Take a look at the subject tags on the right sidebar of this page.

Our continuing focus will be to hold our media and our government accountable, to get progressives elected and to promote further coalition and bridge building across all parts of the new progressive movement in America, everywhere in the country. Our writing comes, not from any single issue perspective, but from the firm conviction that we can create a progressive, just and prosperous America if we all but stick together.

We're not funded by any outsiders, and advertising revenue does not consistently cover our site maintenance costs. I don't mean to get all NPR about this, but we could really use your help on a consistent basis, if you believe in what we do. What is it worth to you to support a community like this that can help change the world we live in?

The following quote form their Libby Trial live-blogging initiative is a good example of the blurring of the line between blogging and journalism, and reflective of the lazy peremptoriness (in my opinion) of many journalists with respect to blogging.

Sure there's lots (and lots) of crap on blogs everywhere .. but the blog world has been really good, time and again, at showing us how much crap there is in mainstream journalism as well.  A good case in point is the recent blog-comment swarming of Jay Carney, Time's Washington Burea Chief, over his inane and inaccurate blog post  at Time's Swampland blog, and his subsequent publishing of  an even more inane (and just plain stupid and arrogant) rebuttal to the blog horde.

And now it seems that this professional blog seems to be showing more journalists who come into contact with it what the dynamics of good, serious and principled activists in combination with an engaged community can deliver. 

There's lots to learn from this, and I expect that it will or can become a great case study about purposeful blogging. 

Here's that excerpt from Firedoglake about their reporting and interpretation of the Libby Trial.

One of the things that has been most interesting is to see the shifting perspectives of the media about this blog in particular as we’ve been at the courthouse. A number of the reporters told me they had already been reading here — for the legal analysis and the media dissection that Jane and I have been doing on this case…well, since this blog got started, really.

But a lot more of them had not, and they had no concept of why we were really there or how we would be acting in terms of coverage, because they had no context for us. Pach started things off on a very professional footing from the get go the first week, and we have now evolved into a sort of “one of the media crew” feeling with them, mainly because of the depth of knowledge that all of us had about varying aspects of the case. They realized, I think, that this isn’t some sort of play acting at being reporters, but that we have a genuine interest in the details and the analysis on this, and that we do it as well as we can.

So there is a grudging level of respect, for the most part. And the most amusing thing was that by the end of the week, I became a sort of legal resource for a lot of folks in terms of what the motions were and the bench arguments were about and the implications of various rulings over the long term court process, etc. — and it was pissing Barbara Comstock off royally as she sat in the bench in front of me every day that people were asking me in stead of her (at least, that’s how it seemed, because I wasn’t spinning them, I was just telling them the law flat out and leaving them to consider whatever political implications there might be on their own).

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