Joe Feers

From my latest:

When word got out that the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd accidentally published part of Josh Marshall’s blog under her own name in a column in the New York Times, more than one blogger reacted with unconcealed glee. It was an understandable and obviously inadvertent error, but for some, a satisfying one nevertheless. After all, aren’t bloggers supposed to be the mainstream media parasites?

This symbiosis has been a long time coming. But it’s increasingly evident every day as Internet-based reporters are increasingly setting priorities for the national news agenda. Greg Sargent, then at the American Prospect, lauded Murray Waas , an independent web reporter, for unearthing the truth about the outing of Valerie Plame and how the Bush administration manipulated intelligence information to take the country to war with Iraq--prodding the mainstream media onward in 2006. Jay Rosen crowned Waas the “Woodward of now,” explaining that the actual “Woodward of now,” Bob Woodward, had somehow missed the story.