There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.

Bloggers on both the right and left wings of the political spectrum are not only getting press coverage these days, they’re making news. They were mentioned prominently today in a Washington Post article about Dan Rather and CBS News. Bloggers raised the question of whether the documents about Bush were authentic, and began the analysis that eventually showed they were probably not. Bloggers now defend Rather and CBS from charges of misconduct. It’s interesting to see this medium become so vital as a forum for citizens. (More on blogging’s place in the info “ecosystem” in this Technology Review blog–registration may be required.) Blogging is just template-driven, easy-to-use web publishing. Yes, just that. Funny how an old idea newly configured can take on a new life all its own. Something like the blues, country, gospel, pop, and folk in the hands of the Beatles, say.

I was also struck by a moment just before the presidential debates last Thursday night. I was watching the full-time ABC News feed on WJLA’s (ABC/Washington D.C.) standard-definition channel just adjacent to their high-definition channel. On the channel was a program featuring a young man with a laptop, a wireless connection to the Internet, streaming webcast software, a microphone, and a light or two. He was interviewing a set of college students in a commons area at the University of Miami. The picture was low-def but certainly watchable. The audio was clear. There were no serious glitches at all. Portable broadcasting, on the fly, on the cheap, without wires. I imagine setup and tear-down took about thirty minutes, max. The biggest issue was probably getting the audio feed back from the anchor to the interviewer.

Everybody look what’s going down.