The NY Times published an interesting article yesterday highlighting (or rather comparing) the blogosphere and main stream media outlets when it came to breaking news to the world last year.
Although the overall emphasis was that the mainstream media (sometimes referred to as “old media”) was hours ahead of their “pajama buddies,” they did acknowledge that bloggers did once in a while establish the news trend (instead of vice versa).
(NY Times) For the most part, the traditional news outlets lead and the blogs follow, typically by 2.5 hours, according to a new computer analysis of news articles and commentary on the Web during the last three months of the 2008 presidential campaign. […]
The researchers’ data points to an evolving model of news media. While most news flowed from the traditional media to the blogs, the study found that 3.5 percent of story lines originated in the blogs and later made their way to traditional media. For example, when Mr. Obama said that the question of when life begins after conception was “above my pay grade,” the remark was first reported extensively in blogs.
While most of the blogosphere probably consists of what some would call the “echo chamber,” the NY Times did highlight a few sites that seemed to be ahead of the curve, namely Talking Points Memo and Hot Air (the latter which is apart of Michelle Malkin’s blog network).
It will be interesting to see whether or not blogs continue to scoop stories ahead of the media, especially with sites like TechCrunch (routinely) breaking news regarding the tech sector and TMZ out scooping the world regarding the death of Michael Jackson.
