Angry in the Great White North

Three bloggers are showcased in a profile that is airing tonight on The National -- 9pm EST on Newsworld, 10pm EST on the main CBC network -- in recognition, I suppose, of the far more significant role blogs are playing in Canadian politics in general, and in this election in particular.

Jonathan Kay of the National Post has made the same case about Canadian bloggers bursting out on the political scene like never before:

Whatever happens on Oct. 14, the 2008 election will be remembered as -- among other things -- the collective coming out party for Canada's blogosphere. Amateur Web scribblers have been making their mark on Canadian politics for years, but never on the scale we've witnessed this month.

Some commentators have argued that bloggers have now become more important than the mainstream media (MSM). And in some contexts, that's true. Conservative Canadian bloggers have single-handedly put the reform of human rights commissions on the national agenda in recent months. And just this past weekend, a blog-originated campaign against CBC.ca columnist Heather Mallick elicited a stunning and unprecedented admission of left-wing bias from a CBC editor, who pulled Mallick's column and promised to "expand the diversity of voices and opinions" on the Web site. The MSM's stranglehold on the marketplace of ideas is slipping. On the Thursday night installment of The National, the CBC glossed over the Hughes story, instead playing up a smaller scandal involving Tory candidate Lee Richardson. Other Liberal friendly outlets were similarly uninterested. But the blogosphere wouldn't let the issue go. "The Tory war room could have been on holiday that day," a senior insider on Harper's election team told me. "Things would still have gone as they did. And so fast. The whole cycle -- including Dion's ever-changing lines of defence -- happened in less than [a day and a half ]."

The episode points the way to the future of the developing relationship between bloggers and the MSM. Yes, there will be competition, as the various media jostle for the available eyeballs out there. But there will also be synergy -- with bloggers doing the sifting and stirring the outrage, while the broadcast and print journalists perform the equally important job of forcing the issue during scrums, interviews and press conferences.

The result: a win-win for everyone -- except, perhaps, 9/11 conspiracy theorists looking to get into politics.

It is humbling to play a part in the evolution of a new medium in Canada.  And it's really cool to be on TV!