How to Get Attention

This past election cycle really saw the web log (or “blog”) come into its own. Blogs now apparently have the power to make and break election candidates and drive stories on their own.

President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign was saved by bloggers finding the holes in the CBS “false but accurate” manufactured memoranda supposedly from the President’s Air National Guard days. Without the efforts of bloggers to expose the forgeries, the story in the hands of the mainstream media might have blown up into something that would have resulted in a John Kerry presidency.

But, the Wall Street Journal’s online edition has pointed out that someone might have lost an election through the efforts of bloggers. That person is none other than former Senate minority leader Tom Daschle.

According to John Fund, South Dakota Republicans became frustrated by perceived bias by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader (the only daily newspaper in South Dakota with a state-wide circulation). What was their reaction? Take it online.

Recently, I did a couple of posts on the damage done to a small town fertilizer company by shoddy reporting. A small fertilizer company was accused of selling chemicals used in the manufacture of massive explosives, like those used at Oklahoma City. The fact was, though, that the fertilizer company had sold the reporter 500 pounds of an extremely common 20-10-10 fertilizer. And I’ve gotten many hits on those stories from news outlets, not just casual readers.

No longer do the great media houses (of either national or regional stature) have the ability to dictate the flow or content of stories. Common people have the ability to write (instead of fight) back. And write is what they did. And to great effect, too:

[Continue reading
How to Get Attention]