Steven Johnson suggests that political blogs may be “a journalistic flotation device.”

Another blogger asks for the evidence of blogs impacting media. Johnson points back to the Washington Post article which motivated his original post, but unfortunately, the story he cites is reporting on media, not on the underlying issues. I’d say we’re still looking for more concrete evidence.

It’s also probably a little early to be calling media reaction “late” — the “gaffe” was only a week ago, journalists are still writing about it without any sign that the blogs drove them back to it, and Lott just issued an apology… Still, I like the idea that blogs could keep Big Media’s collective feet to the fire…

Update, 2002-12-13:
OK, so I sort of overlooked the fact that the Paul Krugman piece I linked to specifically cited Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo weblog. Also, a comment on Steven Johnson’s weblog pointed me back to a TPM posting where Marshall notes that Dow Jones Newswire credited his blog as a source.