Blogs Coming of Age in Spain: Madrid-based blogger Marta Peirano of Elástico says recent world events, including the Prestige oil spill and the Iraq war, sparked growth and a new sense of significance for Spain's blogs this year.
"All of a sudden it became obvious that TV and newspapers weren't providing us with the truth," Peirano says. "We saw things on weblogs that contradicted what we were seeing in conventional media -- digital snapshots and first-person reports posted by independent people, individuals, who'd traveled to the oil spill site to help with cleanup. [...]
"The traditional press in Spain, as in other parts of the world, is in a deep economic crisis," says [journalist Jose Cervera, director of the online edition of Spanish newspaper 20 Minutos]. "By their own numbers, they have more readers than ever before, but they're in bad fiscal shape. But this year, the combination of Internet growth in general and their own internal crisis will make blogs a very, very important part of the mediascape here. This is the year that blogs become a household word in Spain."
