Blogs and the news media agenda

When blogs first became popular, it was clear that there were tensions between bloggers and mainstream journalists. Many bloggers were explicity critical of what they call the MSM - the mainstream media - and its biases and hidden agendas. Similarly, journalists were very suspicious of bloggers - and ofen very dismissive of what they wrote.

Over the last three- four years, there have been a number of celebrated cases in which bloggers have directly affected the news agenda and have, via their blogs, forced professional journalists to cover stories in a particular way. We're going to look at some of these cases today.

I'll split you up into groups and I want you to find out the story behind these four names

• Dan Rather
• Trent Lott
• Eason Jordan
• Dilpazier Aslam