Michael Busamte

Michael Busamte is a journalism student who writes media criticism for his own blog and others.

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.

No—Dowd’s accident is yet another sign of how traditional media outlets are increasingly (and to their credit) taking cues from the reporters and commentators who populate the blogosphere. But not everyone in the mainstream media has been loath to admit this.

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 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.