It seems as though the LA Times may have a clue about the value of bloggers

i've refrained from commenting on the domenech firestorm because, basically, i don't give a damn... but, now that the dust is settling, it's good to see that someone, somewhere, has a clue...

Even a casual reading of the facts demonstrates clearly that the online folks — whatever their ideology — performed pretty much as one would wish. In fact, they vindicated many of their medium's claims to be a seedbed to communities of collaborative watchdogs, each building on the other's work to shed light on an issue that engages them.

And, as anyone who's ever owned one knows, the best watchdogs will bite, as well as bark.

While the initial concerns about Domenech were raised by liberal bloggers and online commentators alarmed by the extremity of his politics and the recklessness with which he expressed them, his critics didn't stop there. Because his career — if a 24-year-old can be said to have such a thing — has essentially been conducted online, there was a digital trail to follow through cyberspace. And follow it they did, within hours. What they found was not simply vulgarity and intemperance, but serial plagiarism of an unsophisticated, unimaginative under-graduate sort.

In short order, the evidence was up on the Web for all to see and judge for themselves. That's when something important happened. Now, the Web is about as polarized as a virtual place can be. It doesn't value civility; ideologically, the law of tooth and claw attains. But because the liberal bloggers and commentators had fashioned a convincing and utterly damning case against Domenech out of his own vanity — who in their right mind compiles an archive of his own thefts? — by Friday morning, conservative bloggers, one after another, began calling on the young man to resign.

and resign he did...

the times hits the nail on the head... this isn't about nailing the wapo or exposing yet another kool-aid drinking, conservative, lying cog in the r's noise machine... what it's really all about is the value of citizen journalism and the vast reach of the internet which, doubtlessly, the power-crazed minions of bushco are already hatching plans to shut down...

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