Today’s New York Times has a great write up about Jane and the rest of the Libby bloggers over at Firedoglake.
The perjury trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr., former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, has drawn every major news organization in the country to the federal courthouse in Washington. But none has fielded a bigger team — or was more openly crushed by the defense decision this week not to put Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby on the stand — than Firedoglake.com.
Even the Web-savvy may ask, Fire dog what? A collective of liberal bloggers, fueled by online donations and a fanatical devotion to the intricacies of the Libby case, Firedoglake has offered intensive trial coverage, using some six contributors in rotation. They include a former prosecutor, a current defense lawyer, a Ph.D. business consultant and a movie producer, all of whom lodge at a Washington apartment rented for the duration of the trial.
All day long during the trial, one Firedoglake blogger is on duty to beam to the Web from the courthouse media room a rough, real-time transcript of the testimony. With no audio or video feed permitted, the Firedoglake “live blog†has offered the fullest, fastest public report available. Many mainstream journalists use it to check on the trial.
It has been amazing, as the technical person for FDL, to watch the traffic increase at this phenomenal rate it has since the trial began. It has also been a lot of work to keep the servers going and keep WordPress humming along, but we have managed with only a few minor bumps.
This has defiantly been a shining moment for the new media versus the traditional media. I sit and watch the reports on MSNBC and CNN at night and wonder how much we wouldn’t hear if it wasn’t for people like Jane and Marcy sitting there giving live updates via the web. This has defiantly forced the traditional media to be more proactive in reporting on such stories.