Can A Blog Make Facts Matter?, Ctd

Conor Friedersdorf worries:

Yes, blogs have kept stories alive and pushed them into the mainstream media, but the blogosphere’s ability to influence events is partly predicated on the knowledge that blogs have the ability to drive newspaper coverage, which has the ability to drive television coverage. Take newspapers out of the equation and no one knows what happens.

And at the local level, an important story that the newspaper once would’ve written about but no longer does is unlikely to get highlighted by the kinds of aggregation sites Andrew is referencing. The information just isn’t relevant to an Internet wide readership.

Drum is also not entirely sold.