Pressão dos Blogs na política americana…
Vamos ver o que acontecerá por aqui nos próximos meses…
O texto é do Dan Gillmor, autor do We the Media.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Why we are all reporters now:

“In the autumn of 2004, Republicans in the US House of Representatives voted to neuter a rule that had required members holding leadership positions to step down if indicted.

The ballot, held in secret, was aimed at helping Tom DeLay, a Texas representative and majority leader who was indicted last year.
By then, however, the Republicans had overturned their rule change, and Mr DeLay was obliged to leave his leadership post. This week, he said he was resigning from the House outright.
The Republicans’ change of heart was not, in my view, entirely motivated by concern for public integrity.
A relentless focus on their original rule change, spurred by a prominent journalistic weblog, surely had something to do with the shift.
Joshua Micah Marshall, creator of a blog called Talking Points Memo, asked his readers who lived in districts represented by Republicans to call their representatives’ offices and ask how they voted on what had become known as the ‘DeLay rule.’
Then Mr Marshall and another blogger reported the tally. They kept up the pressure on the House Republicans, who must have wondered why people cared about their action.

Power of the crowd
The process, asking readers to help report the story, fit into a category I have been calling ‘distributed journalism.’ Mr Marshall was one of the first to see the potential.”

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