I have FDL in my FeedReader and read every post they post. And am big fan of yours Glenn. I read your posts every day since last 3 months. I don't remember you talking about the best way to pull out of Iraq. Or if you support any plan proposed by any one of the Democratic Candidates. I would love to hear your opinion on this.

Thanks

What does it tell us about the national media when Jane is itching to get out of the hospital after cancer surgery to go cover this, and gives it better coverage than any main stream source? It shows how sad the MSM is today. The pundocracy ought to be ashame of themselves. They only have themselves to blame for selling their souls and journalist integrity for access

Give Bush a cigar and a willing intern and the media will be all over it, round-the-clock for 2 years.

From what I can gather, Glenn Greenwald likes Firedoglake? If true, wow -- that sure is amazing news! Good thing he wrote a whole post about it. I hope I've got that right. Kind of hard to tell.

... the shameless credit-grabbing by Robert A. Cox, president of "the America Bloggers Association."

For blogs, the Libby trial marks a courthouse coming of age. It is the first federal case for which independent bloggers have been given official credentials along with reporters from the traditional news media, said Robert A. Cox, president of the Media Bloggers Association. Mr. Cox negotiated access for the bloggers.

Mr. Cox had absolutely no role in negotiation access for Firedoglake, which did so independently long ago, most likely before Mr. Cox even thought about it. Cox has also tried to force FDL into his "pool" deal with AP, which, I believe, FDL rebuffed. And yet Cox not only continues to act like this was all his doing, the Times dutifully goes along.

FDL's coverage was FDL's alone, and in no way, shape, or form, associated with whatever con game Cox is pushing.

Glenn,

Couldn't agree more on the incredible work by the FDL crew the last couple of weeks - it really does feel like a watershed moment.

You and FDL have become required reading everyday, all day.

Some people apparently need to have the numerous times that professional journalist have been condescending or downright nasty to bloggers or have the etymology of the phrases "dirty f##king hippies" or "unwashed masses" explained to them or for that matter the source of the phrase "blogger ethics panel" revealkd before they will inderstand why Glenn's post is news.

I suddenly feel like an old-timer!

This not only ran in the NYT. It ran prominently, as it should have, on the front page.

The FDLers' work highlights something that both Froomkin of the WaPo and Jay Rosen of PressThink and the NYU School of journalism have been saying for some time. Blogging complements traditional journalism. Bloggers can dig deeper, face no deadlines or space constraints and, when widely read and open to comment, are self-correcting.

Bloggers can't easily develop relationships with sources, nor do they have the training and experience of professional journalists. Pachacutec of the FDL team noted this early on in the trial--that these reporters were good at getting down verbatim quotes, but there were other things .

Those things they don't get are frequently things bloggers are good at, like connecting the dots across stories.

Dave,

You're right. Shane did get sucked in my Cox self-promotion (no vulgar pun intended).

The address to request corrections from the NYT is nytnews@nytimes.com.

FireDogLake's reporting is a window into the future, as you so rightly note. I've been a journalist — reporter, editor and columnist — since 1964 and though my e-media skills are limited, I can at least recognize this new paradigm that's before us. My son, a blogger, is heading in the right direction. Blogs are the future of news dissemination; most news gathering organizations are beginning to realize it, as The Times article shows — it's patronizing tone aside. The work of Hamshire, Smith et al, as well as your work, Glenn, and the efforts of Atrios, Digby, Kos and others, are showing old foggies like me — who remember paste-pots and 'copy boys' in the news room — what this wonderful and important profession will become. Today's mass media has abdicated, as we all know. The new media will rush in to, as Churchill said be "the guardian of every right that free men prize."

Glenn Rutherford

From the Firedoglake post:

"One correction, though: the MBA did NOT negotiate our media passes. We have been working on getting passes for this trial from the moment Libby was indicted. Jane and I made calls to the courthouse, e-mailed, wrote letters, and worked on getting credentialed from very early on. To emphasize our commitment to doing serious coverage, we enlisted the help of Arianna, whose Huffington Post name was more recognizable than FDL to folks not familiar with how blogs had been covering this investigation. But the gaining of our three media passes? That was OUR work. And it was our consistent work on this case — for years — that got us the passes, and not anyone from the outside. I don't want to get into a pissing contest with some other blog group because, frankly, I've got better things to do with my time this morning, but I wanted to be clear on that point — we worked our butts off to get credentialed for this case, and we were credentialed early. Mr. Shane may have misunderstood on that point, so I wanted to make that perfectly clear."

BTW, I sent in my request for a correction to the Times. I was very polite!

Traditional media has left a void, nature abhors a vacuum, and the progressive blogosphere is evolving to fill it. The FDL work, as well as the recent events with Edwards Campaign bloggers, show this evolution.

Of particular interest to me is that the FDL written record, produced at the trial, is by definition a primary historical document. Unlike many blog records, it is not composed solely of opinion/analysis of events reported elsewhere. Rather, the FDL transcript is part of the primary court documentation, along with court evidence, transcripts, artistic renderings, reportage, and so forth.

I hope that bloggers will understand and accept the importance of their work, and I hope they will also appreciate the need for permanent preservation of their site records. By this, I don't mean that blog archives should remain accessable through the life of a given blog. That is not an historical archive. What I am referring to is a functional archive that will safely preserve blog records for posterity-- permanently. I hope that bloggers of all stripes will give this issue some thought, and will take steps to permanently preserve these unique records of public discourse for future generations.