With the speed and relative low cost at which people can set up blogs, as well as register new URLs, it just makes sense that we're going to start seeing blogs on very specific, narrow topics that are also very timely.
Take a blog that went live on Saturday. Rathergate.com discusses the controversy regarding the authenticity of military documents used in Dan Rather's 60 Minutes story from a week and a half ago.
It's very much a grassroots effort (sharing a conservative point of view), with frequently updated blog content as well as a petition tool to enable Anti-Rather readers to share their displeasure with CBS and local affiliates.
The interesting thing about this blog is that it was set up to basically discuss one topic/issue. While there are hundreds (if not thousands) of blogs talking about "Rathergate," this is the only one I know of that is focusing exclusively on this topic, and one that has a specific URL (www.rathergate.com) to prove it.
Much has been written about the Dan Rather forged memo story over the past week, especially in the blogosphere. The power of bloggers to not only write about breaking news, but to affect it is significant. Bloggers' interactions with traditional journalists on this story (and many others during this presidential campaign are changing the entire news gathering process.
How will this story, as well as the blogger-journalist interactions during this entire presidental election, affect the news business? This is going to be interesting.
-aB
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