A story in yesterday's WSJ (Have a Laptop? You, Too, Can Sway New Hampshire Race) presents an interesting illustration of the important role citizen journalists are playing in American politics:
The Blue Hamsters, as the three bloggers sometimes call themselves and their readers, represent a new class of political amateurs who are changing the way information flows to activists. In Iowa, there's "Bleeding Heartland," a Democratic site founded by a college student. In Florida, Democratic bloggers recently formed the "Blog Florida Blue" coalition. Republicans are getting into the act, too, with sites like South Carolina's "Palmetto Scoop," which serves up bits of news.
The story is significant in that it offers insight into the important role these and similar bloggers play in keeping a channel open between voters and political candidates the mainstream media has already deemed less than worthy of the kind of coverage granted to front runners.
These back-of-the-pack candidates may not have a realistic shot at the White House, but the MSM shirks its Fourth Estate responsibilities and does a disservice to voters by ignoring their ideas.
As the front runners maneuver to be all things to all people, the others have little to lose by saying what they really think.
Dennis Kucinich, for instance, has no chance in hell of becoming President - and maybe that's a good thing. But he's also one of the few candidates to actually speak his mind. That kind of honesty is too often missing from a democratic process that for decades has all the political validity and relevance of American Idol.
Independent citizen journalists -- like those in the WSJ article, and the people connected with Cleveland's own Meet the Bloggers, represent a vital new platform, and an important step toward real democracy. They fill the gap left by the MSM by providing a public platform for those whose willingness to express original, challenging ideas makes them both unelectable in an increasingly superficial political climate, and indispensable in a truly democratic process.
