◼ Blogs and upstart websites have altered news delivery forever, and the networks are now covering stories broken on news websites as often as they are breaking their own. - The Daily Caller
But that is just part one of the new media revolution. Part two began on September 20, when California Congressman and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa held a telephone press conference on the developing gunwalker component of the “Fast and Furious” scandal. The substance of the call concerned a possible FBI cover-up, the appointment of a special prosecutor and other recent developments in the Department of Justice’s program, which allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican drug cartels, resulting in the deaths of border patrol agent Brian Terry and hundreds of Mexican citizens.
But, as momentous as the news Issa delivered was, the method of his delivery was even more significant. Issa didn’t reach out to the household names of big journalism. He didn’t call newspaper reporters or broadcast news outlets. For whatever undeclared reason, the mainstream outlets did not deem the “Fast and Furious” scandal worthy of their viewership’s attention, so Issa solved his own problem. He called bloggers. In that single act, a sitting congressman took a little credibility away from established news outlets and handed it to the blogosphere....
In our new age, the old media is slowly and reluctantly learning that they can no longer unilaterally decide what is news and what isn’t. Perhaps more importantly, Issa has reminded us that in a free society, it is the people’s duty to police the fourth estate in order to facilitate the fourth estate’s duty: to protect the people.
