Zakaria on Blogs

From The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, a call for public-spirited elites and authority by Fareed Zakaria:

In the world of journalism, the personal website ("blog") was hailed as the killer of the traditional media. In fact, it has become something quite different. Far from replacing newspapers and magazines, the best blogs - and the best are very clever - have become guides to them, pointing to unusual sources and commenting on familiar ones. They have become new mediators for the informed public. Although the creators of blogs think of themselves as radical democrats, they are in fact a new Toquevillean elite. Much of the Web has moved in this direction because the the wilder, bigger, and more chaotic it becomes, the more people will need help navigating it. (pg. 254)