before appearing in other media took place in July 2005



when terrorism struck London. As passengers were



evacuated from a subway car near an explosion, one



man took several photographs of the scene with his



cellular phone, and within an hour these images were



posted online. First-person accounts of the catastrophe



began appearing on blogs soon after these photos



appeared, and people all over the world learned about



the events in London by reading the words and seeing



the photos posted by bloggers.





The fact that these stories and images were being spread



directly by individuals operating without the added



filter of a reporter helped to make the crisis feel very



immediate to people across the globe. When it comes to



blogging, news often appears in a very personal context.



This has the potential to be the beginning of an exciting



new era of reporting, one that takes "New Journalism"



to it's logical next step by putting the power to shape



how the news is written and read directly into the hands



of the public.





Many bloggers and cultural commentators who are



champions of the weblog movement feel that this



growing trend of individuals who getting their news



from blogs is a good thing, because it makes the flow of



information more democratic. By decentralizing the



control of news, blogs allow more voices to enter the



field of debate about important current events.



However, many people are adamantly opposed to the



use of blogs as news outlets, and there are plenty of



good arguments on this side of the debate. Unlike



newspapers or television stations, few blogs have fact-



checkers, and there is little attention paid to journalistic



accountability on many blogs. This can lead to the rapid



spread of misinformation, and more than one falsehood



has taken the blogosphere by storm. The questions



about whether blogging news as it happens is ethical or



not are very complicated, but no matter where you stand



on the topic of current events blogs you are almost sure



to agree that this movement has the potential to



revolutionize how modern people get their news.

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