It depends on my mood.

The Democratic Underground leaps to mind, though.
Andrew Sullivan.
Glenn Greenwald.
There's a few others.

Which would seem to suggest that those who read blogs are more discerning than most.

And don't forget the people who just need to read the headline, figure it all out, give you the answer so you will know what to do from this day forth.

what would you call that? More discerning for most?

lol.

To the extent that bloggers have penetrated this market it has been by providing a better product for a better price -- and this is where it really gets scary for Big Media -- frequently for nothing. The ride is only going to get bumpier.

Which would seem to suggest that those who read blogs are more discerning than most.

And also the fact that blogs allow readers to discern more than just what it written on the blog. Between hyperlinks in the articles, comment threads, and Google, a blog is just the starting point for your discussions of the subject.

This as opposed to the MSM structure where the article is presented as the end of the discussion on the subject.

Which would seem to suggest that those who read blogs are more discerning than most.

“blogging tends to be the hobby of people with full-time jobs who do it because it’s more fun than stamp collecting.”

That’s right and certainly describes my venture into the blogosphere.

Dude! Stamp collecting rocks!

Blogger's don't change the outcomes, but they sure can change the public narrative, which then has the possibility of changing the outcomes.

After CBS's screw up, nobody was going to touch that story with a ten foot pole, and anybody who brought it up was instantly compared (unfavorably) to Rather.

After Clinton's sniper "misstatement", she can't talk about foreign policy experience she gained as the first lady without that experience being brought into question.

In 2004, CBS presented their story on Bush and the Texas Air National Guard. Absent bloggers, that would have been the story line for the media. Bloggers started asking questions. The story became the CBS fraud on its viewers (not the result they were looking for). You could make an argument that absent that check on the MSM, 2004 could have turned out differently.

Likewise, without bloggers would the swiftboat veterans have been able to get the story out and force the acknowledgement that parts of Kerry's story that were "seared into his memory" never happened?

Without these two corrections to the media (both cases where the press published a lie and were caught), could 2004 have turned out differently? Possibly, but you can never tell.

I see the impact of bloggers as more of a check on the MSM. When the pendulum swings to far to one side (allowing falsehoods to be accepted as truth because of partisan bias), the bloggers can act as a countervailing force.

On the left, would Obama have gotten where he is without the nutroots support? Possibly, but again you can't prove or disprove it.

But I think it is at least a possibility that both nomination and general elections have already been heavily influenced, if not changed by bloggers.