The growing number of weblogs — or blogs, as they are affectionately known — on the Internet has become a cause for concern among mainstream media organisations. Within a few years, blogs have developed from personal musings on 1DAY events to full-blown critical commentaries which are often well-informed and 2ELOQUENCE expressed. With an estimated fifty-two million bloggers writing on almost every 3CONCEIVE subject each day, corporate media can no longer ignore them or treat them with 4RESPECT. The ubiquity of blogs means that they are increasingly 5INFLUENCE as can be seen in the number of news stories that have been 6CREDIT or called into question by bloggers in recent years. Bloggers have a freedom unavailable to mainstream journalists. They bypass both editor and publisher, who by their very presence 7INEVITABLE distort stories by ‘tailoring’ them to suit their own ends. The material on blogs is raw, 8MODIFY by editors, and often harsh and direct in its criticism of the way news is reported by the media. The advantages of this for the reading public are obvious. Bloggers act as a kind of media watchdog, able to check facts and verify or disprove information in a way that journalists are often unable to, and this is shaking mainstream media out of its complacency.