Michael Beanne

Michael Beanne is a blogger and political and media analyst working and living in Washington D.C.

When word got out that 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 inadvertent error, but for some, a satisfying one nevertheless. After all, aren’t bloggers supposed to be the mainstream media parasites?

No—Dowd’s accident is yet another sign of how traditional media outlets are increasingly taking their cues from those who populate the blogosphere.

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. Many have lauded Murray Waas , an independent web reporter, for unearthing the truth about how the Bush administration took us to war with Iraq-- prodding the mainstream media onward in 2006. Jay Rosen crowned Waas the “Woodward of now,” explaining that the actual Bob Woodward, had missed the story.

Howard Kurtz described in 2007 how Marshall’s TPM and Murray Waas both “acted as catalysts” in pushing forward the story about the Bush administration’s U.S. attorney firing scandal.