Blogs forced-out a senator that mainstream media overlooked

Evidence

And in 2002, then-senator Trent Lott made a pro-segregationist remark at a birthday dinner for venerable former Dixiecrat senator Strom Thurmond. While it was largely ignored by the mainstream media, which treated it as a minor tidbit, it was picked up by two major liberal blogs: Talking Points Memo and Eschaton. A few days later, the New York Times began covering the story, and two weeks later, Lott stepped down. Blogs exemplified the FOSS maxim “given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow,” though in this case, inadequate reporting by the mainstream media, not a computer programming “bug,” was what was being overcome by a helpful group of citizens. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 106

Categorization

• CANDY: The Trent Lott resignation is a clean, self-contained story — a senator felled by two blogs after the news media shrugged — great elevator material.
• SEED: Comparison piece possibility: the Lott case as the high-water mark of ‘blog = fourth estate’ optimism, against today’s creator-influencer economy where platform incentives dominate over civic muckraking.
• XREF: connects to: The echo chamber hypothesis about political blogging remains empirically contested — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 108; Early blogs could force mainstream media coverage and oust political figures — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 106

Broader Connections

• The echo chamber hypothesis about political blogging remains empirically contested #corroborates (0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 108