Weblogs report on the hurricane

Print and broadcast media outlets are not necessarily the fastest in getting information out about the effects of the hurricane that has hit the Gulf Coast. There is a good practical reason for this: the continuing danger, plus the fact that many areas have been mostly evacuated, mean that there are not so many people on the spot, and that government agencies which provide damage reports have not been able to do their surveys immediately. CNet offers some details on some of the different ways that weblog writers and contributors are stepping into the void, either by aggregating the information available from different local media or by publishing on-the-spot reports from "citizen journalists." It might be thought of as a window into ways in which technologies like the internet are changing the boundaries of access to information, and also expanding the ability of people to act as sources of information.