http://www.cjrdaily.org/behind_the_news/how_talkingpointsmemo_beat_the.php

How TalkingPointsMemo Beat the Big Boys on the U.S. Attorney Story


It's almost too perfect. A mainstream reporter mocks a story a blogger has been
working to break, asserting that "it all makes perfect conspiratorial sense!",
and that the blogger is "seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely
exist," only to backtrack a few weeks later when the story explodes across the
front pages of the major dailies.


If you wanted to force the issue -- and we would be surprised if some MSM-hating
critic doesn't -- the episode illustrates perfectly how the Washington press
corps ignores the blogosphere at its own peril. But the story, and its
implications, are actually far more complicated -- and for journalism,
heartening -- than that.