Blogging's place in the Media

There has been a lot of talk lately about the Weblog's place in the larger context of Media. Is the blog a media watchdog as seen in the CBS documents, administration paid journalist and Jeff Gannon/James Guckert scandles? Or is it just a way for random people to talk about their daily lives and personal happenings? Maybe it is a place for more traditional journalism to find a different kind of audience?

I think the answer is some kind of combination of the three. I believe that the place of the blog is to do what most new media has done. Blogs fill the gap where traditional media has either failed or simply doesn't exist. For example, recently the King of Nepal over through the democratic government and has banned the nepalese media from criticizing him or his government or reporting on any of the activities sorounding the coup. A blog has filled the void, much as they did during the U.S. invasion and current occupation of Iraq. Radio Free Nepal is providing links to non nepalese press and first hand reports about the current conditons in Nepal. This is information that is not available to either the outside world or much of Nepal at this time.