The Power of a Blogger

This is a stunning piece in the New York Times. If you want to find out how much has changed because of a single blogger, look no farther than Brian Stetler who writes the must-read end-all be-all blog of television news (called TVNewser).

It's written for the cable news folks, and is read daily, all the time, by TV Executives and anchors, including Brian Williams, for example. The head of CNN domestic operations gave the TVNewser blogger his cell phone number. MSNBC invited his as their guest to the White House Correspondent's Dinner where there was a line to meet him. Anchors, executives, and others leak stories and information to him in hopes that he'll write favorably about them.

So who is this incredibly powerful blogger? Would you believe Brian Stetler is a 21 year old student at Towson University just outside of Buffalo? Who is majoring in Mass Communications and edits the school newspaper. Who has never worked in broadcast news.

Here's one of the many incredible paragraphs in the article:

When his postings dropped off last month after his girlfriend dumped him, Mr. Stelter found himself fielding complaints from powerful network executives about when he was going to get over his romantic travails and get back on track. “I was dealing with drama,” he said.

Here's another one:

The network publicists generally know his class schedule — afternoons on Tuesdays and Thursdays — and barrage him with material, which they often expect him to post within minutes. While recording a radio segment for one of his classes — Mass Communication 381 — he turned his cellphone off for 15 minutes, then turned it back on to find one nagging voice mail message from an ABC publicist and another from CNN.

You really should read this article. Talk about the power of the Internet and the power one individual has with some super-powered servers.