David Pinto offers a bit of support to the growing influence of blogs,

The other thing I want to note is that this is the first time a national writer has sent me a link to an on-line article, I assume, in order to get broader attention for the article. Bloggers send things to each other all the time in the hope of getting linked and reaching a broader audience. But now professional writers appear to be discovering blogs as a way to get their work seen by an audience interested in the work. That’s great news for the blogosphere.