The difference between the big guys and the rest of us

I'm always so appreciative when one of you, my blog friends, is kind enough to link to something I've written. It's gratifying both because I appreciate the compliment to my blog (or, at least, I assume a compliment to my blog), and because I enjoy the increased blog traffic these links bring. It's not usually a big leap in blog traffic, since my friends are, like me, long tail bloggers -- that is, people whose readership statistics puts them a big outside of the big hump of the big blogs, and into the graceful tail trailing along behind that stellar collection. But there's been a steady upswing in my readership and my ego just craves that attention. Today, however, when I checked my stat counter, expecting to see the usual llimited complement of Sunday readers (about 50, bless all of you), I discovered 3,000 hits and counting. It turns out that Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs, was kind enough to link to my story about the Palestinian family whose son was accidentally shot by Israeli soldiers, who bravely chose to donate his organs to Israeli citizens. It's an amazing story, and deserves a wide readership. I'm just thrilled that, thanks to LGF, the wide readership comes through my blog! Anyway, putting aside my overwhelming ego, the traffic that came here through LGF was, for me, another reminder of how important the blogosphere has become to the spread of information in this country (this world?), and how it colors political debate. Certainly, we've seen how, in the Left, politicians seem to be disproportionately responsive to the angry bloggers, so much so that they're abandoning the rest of their broader, stabilizing constituencies. Likewise, I don't believe there can be any doubt but that the blogosphere helped encourage Harriet Miers to withdraw her ill-fated nomination. The immediate effect of a single Charles Johnson link also, I think, goes a long way to explaining the repeated stories about the decline in print media. It's not just that it's easier and cheaper to open a computer story. To my mind, it's also because the blogsphere has exposed the naked Emperor who has long hidden himself behind the MSM. I still check in with the MSM regularly, but I always know to doublecheck with my favorite blogs -- big or small -- to make sure I get the whole story. (An immediate example that springs to mind is Michelle Malkin's story exposing of the NY Times' disgraceful behavior regarding Cpl. Jeffrey Starr. In the old days, the truth would never have emerged, or certainly not with such speed.)