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Top blogs often too one-sided [Free Republic and Drudge dwarf all others but are unfair]
The Oregonian ^ | October 23, 2005 | Regina Lawrence

Posted on 10/23/2005 12:18:04 PM PDT by Jim Robinson

T here's been a lot of excitement about blogs since they broke into public consciousness during the 2004 election. They are now growing at an astronomical rate. The blog search engine Technorati now tracks almost 20 million of them, and various estimates of the number of blog users range from 32 million to 50 million Americans.

Blogophiles see blogs as a new way for citizens to express themselves and, especially among the political bloggers, a new way for citizens to talk back to the "MSM" -- the mainstream media. According to Mike Godwin, legal director of a First Amendment advocacy group called Public Knowledge, "A.J. Liebling famously commented that freedom of the press belongs to those who own one. Well, we all own one now."

But in all the excitement and hype, it's easy to overlook the fact that in some ways political blogs are not so different from or even separate from the MSM they often love to hate.

One similarity is found in emerging patterns of Web traffic. Blog abundance creates a paradox: Given more information choices than ever, most people economize, trying to find efficient ways to tame the information tide. So most regular users rely on a few blogs for most of their information. That's one reason why a handful of political blogs gets the lion's share of traffic. A recent study of 2 million Internet users found that the top four blog "hosts," such as blogspot.com, are visited by more than 5 million visitors per quarter. Unique visitors to the Drudge Report and the conservative blog freerepublic.com number2 million to 3 million per quarter, twice as many as their nearest competitors and dwarfing countless smaller blogs.

(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: blogs; fr; liberalwhine; peep; weblogs
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To: Mike Darancette
This is so worth repeating........


FR is fair and balanced.

FReepers post news items 'fairly' often and other FReepers on 'balance' mock those news stories.


Personally I read FR not just for information but those one liner or one word replies that make you spew coffee all over the place and the pets jump.
161 posted on 10/24/2005 7:57:45 AM PDT by BabsC
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To: gondramB
This argument would not just free up soft money but individual contributions direct to the campaign. Should the SC ever take this (really logical) position it sure would make the individual large donor more important. That would make for very interesting politics.
Yes. For example, the 1968 Eugene McCarthy bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination was, IIRC, essentially funded by a single large donation. That could not be replicated under "campaign finance reform."

162 posted on 10/24/2005 8:33:00 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.)
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To: Jersey Republican Biker Chick

The great thing about blogs is that there's about four bloggers for each blog reader.  It's not at all a case of the vast majority of people shouting into an empty abyss. 

I myself, am starting a blog on blogging.  I'll call it Bloggy McBlogger.

Owl_Eagle

(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
it was probably sarcasm)

163 posted on 10/24/2005 10:58:48 AM PDT by End Times Sentinel (In Memory of my Dear Friend Henry Lee II)
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To: Owl_Eagle

Do you want fries with that?


164 posted on 10/24/2005 11:03:16 AM PDT by Jersey Republican Biker Chick (People too weak to follow their own dreams, will always find a way to discourage yours.)
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To: Jim Robinson

BTT 4 L8R


165 posted on 10/25/2005 8:06:43 PM PDT by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
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