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The rise of blogs has presented yet another challenge for newspapers. What started out in the late 1990s and early 2000s as amateur, sideline journalism has become a major source of news—one that has begun calling papers’ authority into question. Widely read blogs like Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, Andrew Sullivan’s the Dish.com, the Drudge Report, Talking Points Memo, and POLITICO have moved this Internet feature into the realm of traditional journalism. In fact, many reporters now write a blog in addition to their regular newspaper, television, or radio work. And some big-name newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times even hire journalists to blog exclusively for their Web sites.

While blogging has grown in popularity, it has also raised concerns among critics who point out that, unlike print journalists, bloggers aren’t required to check their sources rigorously. A blogger merely has to post his or her opinion about an issue or event, yet many readers swallow this content whether or not it has been backed by rigorous reporting practices. The rise of blogs has also triggered turmoil in many news organizations, as established journalists have left to begin new careers in the blogosphere. For example, top journalists John Harris and Jim VandeHei departed the Washington Post to launch POLITICO in 2007, a national blog (and, secondarily, a local newspaper) about Capitol Hill politics.

Indeed, some blogs have won respect as viable information sources. In 2008, the Talking Points Memo blog, headed by Joshua Micah Mitchell, won a George Polk Award for legal reporting. Today some blog sites stand alongside printed papers as trusted, authoritative sources of news (see “Converging Media Case Study: News Aggregation”).