Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers, firefighters or even bartenders.
As bloggers have increased in numbers, the number of journalists has significantly declined. In Washington alone, there are now 79% fewer DC-based employees of major newspapers than there were just few years ago. At the same time, Washington is easily the most blogged-about city in America, if not the world.
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The United Kingdom has just had a major scandal in which an official at 10 Downing Street had planned to leak to a friendly blogger all sorts of lurid stories about the Conservatives, complete with descriptions of secret sex tapes. But all of it was to be made up, and the friendly blogger who was going to post it all thought it was an “absolutely brilliant” idea. Someone blew the whistle, but had the plot gone through, this blogstorm could have played a major role in the upcoming election.