Question: What big stories were first broken by blogs or alt. journalists?

[WilliamPitt]

I am giving a talk to about 400 high school students on blogging and the New Media, and am looking for some solid examples of big stories that emerged from outside the MSM.

Anything you can think of would be enormously helpful.

[Lerkfish]

1. unfortunately, the only one I know about is the blue dress and Drudge.

[illflem]

2. Rather and the TANG fiasco

[WiseButAngrySara]

22. Sadly, this is the first one that came to my mind also, but it was

probably a set-up by Rove. Instead of focusing on the truth of the 60 minutes report by Rather, it was turned on its head, with Rather and CBS being slammed instead of B*. Rove at his finest (GAG), and CBS is still being penalized. The new president of CBS was just announced, and the Rather 'screw-up' was mentioned as being, in large part, responsible for the new replacement.

[DinahMoeHum]

3. The Jeff Gannon/Jim Guckert planted fake journalist thing?

Just wondering.

:shrug:

[riverwalker]

4. Camp Casey and Cindy n/t

[quiet.american]

5. David Corn - Valerie Plame

A White House Smear - posted 7/16/2003

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=823

Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

[mountebank]

31. Nice - this was the first mention, and as for how it transmitted to MSM

see my post below.

[NashVegas]

6. Chavez Didn't Resign

Was in the alternative media when the NYT was still reporting he'd stepped aside.

The Niger documents that sent Joe Wilson to Africa. Josh Marshall has been reporting on those in detail for a year or so - it may yet explode.

The link between Hormone Replacement Therapy and breast cancer was in the alternative media as far back as the early 1990s.

[VolcanoJen]

35. Josh's Niger Documents story looks like it's about to absolutely explode

Josh even says in a post today that MSM reporters are in Italy sniffing out the story.

[Coexist]

7. In the US - the DSM came from the blogosphere

even though it originated from MSM across the pond.

[Coexist]

10. and I hate to add it, but the Koppel/National Guard fiasco came

from the blogs.

[jsamuel]

8. Right now, the first news on indictments is coming from the blogsphere

the MSM still says "no news"

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. DSM, Plame, and Guckert\ Gannon

to give some examples

[Maddy McCall]

11. Remember when we pulled an all-nighter and dug up the dirt on...

that guy who had is son rip the sign out of his daughter's hands--his daughter was perched on his shoulders. And the reporter who photographed the "incident" was in cahoots on the whole plan.

This guy had a history of causing skirmishes at Democratic events, and then claiming that Democrats had assaulted him.

What was his name? BKL and I stayed up all night and dug up the dirt on the guy. And, shortly thereafter, the story began being repeated in the MSM.

[meganmonkey]

13. Oh yeah - Phil Parlock

What a Bastard!

[Maddy McCall]

14. That's him!

And I can't get to that thread, because the archive search function is disabled.

CRAP! And I didn't bookmark it.

Yes, that was an investigation that originated at DU and then spread to the MSM.

[melody]

12. Watergate -- dear, old Mae Brussell

Okay, she was crazy, but she was also more than occasionally right. (even if she did think a friend of mine was part of the "Rockefeller Conspiracy")

[John Q. Citizen]

18. I used to listen to Mae Brussel back in the 70's and 80's

She was sure hip to the bush crime family, and she claimed that a series of stories she did on Poppy resulted in death threats against her family and friends that caused her to quit broadcasting..

[Ignacio Upton]

15. Several

From the right:
Monica was broken by Drudge (he's not a blog but he's still an internet presence)
The TANG documents (although the jury is still out on that, since, IMHO someone from the White House helped the conservative blogosphere)

From the left:
Josh Marshall helped topple Trent Lott
DSM was brought up
Plame was continued
Gannon would not have become a major story without the liberal blogosphere
The blogs also helped in raising money for Dean, and then Kerry. First time in several election cycles that the DNC raised more money than the RNC.

[Ignacio Upton]

16. The term "Fitzmas" also originated here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitzmas

[Coexist]

17. Did the "angry Florida mob" outside the recount office in FL

that turned out to be Republican interns begin on the internet? I think it did.

[hang a left]

19. Abu Ghraib (sp)

[VolcanoJen]

36. The initial Abu Ghraib photos were first shown by 60 Minutes II

But, I'll never forget that night, here at DU, when those photos first hit the airwaves.

[Cleita]

20. The Niger yellowcake was a hot topic here at DU

long before it hit the mainstream media.

[myrna minx]

21. Duers pressured a reporter to correct an error in the Washington Post today

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5179035#5179052

[Spazito]

23. There are a couple of stories I think were first broken on the blogs

The phony takedown of the Saddam statue

The use of duplicate faces to make bush's audience look bigger

[symbolman]

24. I can think of two from Takebackthemedia.com

First: When CNN came out with Hans Blix's report on WMD, etc they left out over 750 words from the report, TBTM demanded that they be put back in, many people from the blogosphere slammed CNN with emails and that same afternoon they put those words BACK into the Hans Blix report.

Second: When TBTM created a boycott against Rush Limbaugh for calling antiwar protesters, "Marxists, Communists and Anti American" on his radio show, with the help of the Blogosphere were SLAMMED MANY of Limbaugh's advertisers and a LOT of them dropped his show, Red Lobster, Geico, See's Candy, Radio Shack, etc - some the SAME AFTERNOON..

We hit him so hard that I was invited on the O'Reilly show to talk about it, so that they could defend him. No telling how much we cost him in advertising, but I would venture to say it was over a million bucks.

Also a Gay/Lesbian group went after Dr Laura and had her removed from I believe the Radio or TV, something like that - if you Google Dr Laura you'll see something on it..

Let them know the New Media IS happening :)

[SidDithers]

25. Didn't Atrios and Josh Marshall shine the light on Trent Lott?...

and his comments at Strom Thurmond's party?

Sid

[cascadiance]

26. Brad's Blog has had quite a bit of election fraud info come out...

With the Feeney stuff, etc.

[Scout1071]

27. The exposure of the astroturf roots group of anti-Sheehan morans,

who actually were a PR firm from Sacramento.

[mountebank]

28. Plame is an excellent example. Here's how it went down....

According to my recollection.

Joseph Wilson, during a seminar in Washington hosted by a congressman, and in response to a question from an audience member about Novak's column, responded that he thought he knew who was responsible and that he would like nothing better than to see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. The MSM would not have touched this had bloggers not prodded alternative media like Democracy Now! to report the exchange. The morning it ran on Democracy Now! - what's his name - the White House reporter that was long a thorn in Ari and Scotty's collective side and published his exchanges on CommonDreams.org - Russell Mokhiber! - that's it. He asked McClellan on 9/16/03 about it, and to my knowledge it was the first serious mention of the incident. Small articles than began to run in Slate, etc., and finally the story broke. Surely it would have eventually broke, given the nature of the investigation - but would there have been an investigation at all if attention hadn't been raised earlier? Anyway, *when* the story broke in the MSM, if nothing else, was entirely dictated, so far as I can tell, by bloggers and alternative media, because nothing had happened to precipitate the first media response - only that they were finally woken up to the news.

On edit: also keep in mind that during the time right after Wilson's "frog-march statement," there was actually not very much attention given this story right here on DU. A thread a day, as I remember, with a handful of loyal followers and plenty of ney-sayers.

[Stephanie]

29. Here's Rose Siding's original DU post on that >

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=211244

Then we found video of it at Inslee's site, and I transcribed and posted that.

[quiet.american]

34. Another excellent flashback -- thanks for digging that out.n/t

[quiet.american]

33. Hey, Monte - thanks for filling in the picture!

Nice flashback!

[wookie294]

30. Rep. Edward Schrock (R) was outed by blogger

Rep. Schrock resigned from Congress after calling a gay chat phone service. Some blogger has the tapes of the calls! See the bottom of RawStory's homepage to listen to the audio.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5870077/

[ramblin_dave]

32. Salon.com exposed Henry Hyde's extramarital affair

in the midst of the Clinton impeachment circus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Hyde

[NashVegas]

37. Doh! Black Box Voting

Germinated right here on DU.

[mountebank]

38. This is another good one. For all the fractious relations and bullsh*t

that went along with it, there's no doubt that the idea that electronic voting machines can be manipulated went straight from the blogs to the average American largely side-stepping MSM.

[freeplessinseattle]

39. Brownie's horse job, and the Microsoft non-support for gay rights

don't know how big those are considered, but both were broken by alt. publication based in Seattle, the first on Horsesass.com, the second by the Stranger.