In this essay, Lasica explores how blogs have started to inform traditional media sources and states his belief that this trend will continue into the future. He praises blogs’ unmediated quality, arguing that it is their raw, impressionistic tone that sets them apart from the “lifeless, sterile and homogenized” throng of mass-media produced news. While the lack of any sort of formal editing can sometimes result in blog posts that are poorly thought-out or highly biased, it can also result in the documentation of unusual news nuggets ignored by the mass media. 

Lasica then considers perspectives from three influential bloggers: Dan Gillmor (a Mercury News reporter who was among the first to start a personal blog), Doc Searls (senior editor of Linux Magazine and owner of a blog examining marketplace trends) and David Winer (owner of Scripting News, a business and technology blog started back in 1995). Gillmor praises blogs for allowing user interaction and notes that he utilizes his blog to gain feedback on stories he’s working on for the Mercury News. Searls argues that blogs provide a way to connect journalists to “other journalists’ journals”, as well as to experts working within a particular field. Because a blog’s popularity is directly based on reader trust and incoming links, he argues that blogs grant readers greater choice in determining where they turn for news. As a result, many blog authors have become increasingly professional and authoritative on the subjects of their blogs. Winer advocates a new sort of personal journalism, unmediated by newspapers or magazines. He stresses individual interests and passions and argues that indulging these passions results in a proliferation of interesting and unique news stories.

A journalist and blogger himself, it is no surprise that Lasica examines blogs from a journalistic perspective. Yet while he paints a clear picture of blogs’ influence on journalism, Lasica fails to discuss how blogs might impact other readers, such as random visitors or industry insiders who turn to blogs for information on readers’ opinions and new trends. How does audience reception affect the production of posts? 

Although Lasica mainly considers “news blogs” (a loosely defined category encompassing all types of niche news), many of his conclusions hold true for fashion blogs as well. For example, many fashion blogs epitomize the raw tone of news blogs and capture unusual trends not featured in traditional media. Furthermore, in a rapidly growing blogosphere, fashion blogs are usually remarkably well connected, with a series of links to other blogs on almost every front page. Most of these blogs are created and maintained by people outside the industry, whose passion for fashion results in a unique, organic perspective.