The rise of the popularity of blogs coincided with the turn of the 21st century. This is attributed to the fact that blogging software began to be developed in 1999 and widely adopted the following year. Some early blogging tools included Open Diary, LiveJournal and blogger.com.
One of the first widespread uses of blogs was for political news coverage. Blogs became an important media outlet not only for breaking political news, but also for politicians and pundits to release spun versions of the news. The political impact of blogs was noted after an incident in 2002 when the Republican majority in the Senate honored longtime Senator Strom Thurmond. When it was suggested that Thurmond would have made a good President, bloggers reacted with facts about the Senator’s past approval of racial segregation. Bloggers began to dig up old video and print quotes from Senator Thurmond’s speeches. The remarks made at the party were not widely covered by the mainstream media, but the impact of blogs eventually played a hand in the resignation of Trent Lott as Senate majority leader.
Another incident demonstrating the impact of political blogs occurred when CBS reporter Dan Rather presented documents to the public that seemed to show the military service of President George W. Bush was not what he had claimed it to be. Bloggers jumped to the occasion and presented evidence that pointed to Rather’s documents as being forgeries.
Both of these incidents gave credibility to blogs as more than personal journals. Blogs had become accepted by the mainstream media and the public as a valid means of disseminating the news and other information. Eventually, respected journalists began blogs of their own, which further blurred the line between the official news media and blogs.
