The Power of Bloggers

BBC NEWS In Depth Bloggers: an army of irregulars

Quote:

I regard the blogosphere as a source of criticism that must be listened to and as a source of information that can be used.
. . .
Most big organisations, whether in news or in business, . . . have nobody monitoring the main blogs and have little idea how to respond to any criticism on them.
. . .
bloggers have, for me, become a useful source.

Only this week, they tracked down the origin of a fake cartoon which has been fuelling the furore over the characterisation of Muhammad in a Danish paper.

One of the pictures being circulated, a very fuzzy, grey photocopy, apparently showed the prophet Muhammad with the face of a pig.

It was quickly pointed out, by bloggers and others, that this was not one of the 12 Danish cartoons. Nobody however knew the origin of this portrayal.

Then I received an e-mail from a reader passing on a link to a blog called neandernews.

And there it was.

The picture had nothing to do with the prophet. It was a photo of the winner of a "pig-squealing" competition held last summer in the French Pyrenees. It had first been published on the MSNBC website in August.

I wonder if other big organizations, like countries, monitor blogs.