VITAMEDIAS
Blogs Make the Headlines: It's safe to assume that, before he flushed his reputation down the toilet, Trent Lott had absolutely no idea what a blog was.
He may have a clue now. Internet opinion pages like Instapundit, run by University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds, and Talking Points Memo, from leftie political columnist Josh Marshall -- were among the first to latch on to ABCNews.com's brief item on Lott's racist comments during Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday bash.
And they kept focusing on Lott's hateful past -- until the national press corps finally had to take notice.
Blogging Goes Mainstream (Year of the Blog)
Blogs, or online Web logs of news and views, were the hot story of 2002, the year when blogging caught the eye of the mainstream press in a big way and pundits began to recognize blogs as useful tools for everything from venting about politics to raving about a favorite band.