YearlyKos Gets Ready for Its Closeup

(NEWSER) - Political campaigning took another step into the blogosphere today as Democratic presidential hopefuls vied for the support of the netroots community at the Yearly Kos convention in Chicago. Seven of the eight candidates answered sometimes-testy questions from what the AP called "powerful and polarizing liberal bloggers." More»

(NEWSER) - Software that would automatically rate the credibility of blogs on a scale from highly credible to “little credible” is in the works in Austria, Ars Technica reports. The program analyzes the distribution of words in successive blog posts and also compares topics against stories covered in the mainstream media to judge timeliness and accuracy. The developers say they hope it will work without any human input. More»

President looks to get past media filter

(NEWSER) - When it came to getting past what he called “the media filter,” President Bush’s favorite strategy was to go around it. President Obama’s style is more to go over, under, around, and through, courting both the new and mainstream media in an effort to communicate directly with the public, Politico reports. “You’ve got lots of people that aren’t cable junkies or news junkies,” Obama's press secretary said. More»

(NEWSER) - The 2008 election marked the death knell of post-Watergate public financing, Mark Schmitt writes for the American Prospect, but the raft of small donations that killed the system heralds a hopeful future. The public financing system was designed—and failed—to limit the influence of special interests: “Since the ability to organize was distributed unequally, regulating organizing was essential to equality.” But the emergence of the Internet allowed small donors to organize with a powerful voice. More»

Board keeps up with 'the changing media landscape'

(NEWSER) - The Pulitzer board has expanded its criteria for award-worthy journalism to include Internet-only publications, Editor & Publisher reports today. While Pulitzers will be available to web outlets, sites must be “text-based” and publish original content at least weekly to be considered. The board made changes in an effort to “keep up with the changing media landscape,” Pulitzer administrator Sig Gissler said. More»