Club Bloggery pt 2: outside the Echo Chamber  Updated October
12, 2007 14:21:00  In the current political climate, it's no
surprise that a number of sessions at the recent Australian
Blogging Conference at QUT focussed on the potential for blogs
and other citizen journalism sites to impact on political news
and punditry.  We have noted previously skirmishes between
psephologist bloggers and political commentators, over
interpretation of polling results. These spats indicate that the
mainstream media (MSM) is finally noticing that their monopoly
on political reporting is over.  It's tempting to claim that
this growing recognition is a sign that bloggers are storming
the gates of the MSM.  Many of the comments on our earlier piece
seem to support that view. As one reader wrote,"I believe that
Possum [Pollytics] and Bryan at have given me more honest and
concise information about this year's political climate than all
of the other media websites put together."  But how
representative are these blogs, and our rea