Editing Blog (section)

===Mainstream popularity===
By 2004, the role of blogs became increasingly mainstream, as [[political consultant]]s, news services, and candidates began using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming. Blogging was established by politicians and political candidates to express opinions on war and other issues and cemented blogs' role as a news source. (See [[Howard Dean]] and [[Wesley Clark]].) Even politicians not actively campaigning, such as the [[Labour Party (UK)|UK's Labour Party's]] [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) [[Tom Watson (Labour politician)|Tom Watson]], began to blog to bond with constituents. In January 2005, ''[[Fortune (magazine)|Fortune]]'' magazine listed eight bloggers whom business people "could not ignore": [[Engadget|Peter Rojas]], [[Xeni Jardin]], [[Benjamin Trott|Ben Trott]], [[Mena Trott]], [[Jonathan I. Schwartz|Jonathan Schwartz]], Jason Goldman, [[Robert Scoble]], and [[Jason Calacanis]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,1011763-1,00.html | title=Why There's No Escaping the Blog | work=Fortune | access-date=January 30, 2014 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050101004415/http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0%2C15114%2C1011763-1%2C00.html | archive-date=January 1, 2005 | last1=Kirkpatrick | first1=David | last2=Roth | first2=Daniel | url-status=dead }}</ref>

Israel was among the first national governments to set up an official blog.<ref name=Ynet>[http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3220593,00.html Israel Video Blog aims to show the world 'the beautiful face of real Israel'], Ynet, February 24, 2008.</ref> Under [[David Saranga]], the [[Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs]] became active in adopting [[Web 2.0]] initiatives, including an official [[video blog]]<ref name=Ynet/> and a [[political blog]].<ref name=Ynet3>[http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3220593,00.html Latest PR venture of Israel's diplomatic mission in New York attracts large Arab audience], Ynet, June 21, 2007.</ref> The Foreign Ministry also held a [[microblogging]] press conference via Twitter about its [[2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict|war with Hamas]], with Saranga answering questions from the public in common text-messaging abbreviations during a live worldwide press conference.<ref name=JP>{{cite news |url=http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230456533492&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull |title=Battlefront Twitter |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111110204933/http://fr.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230456533492&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull |archive-date=November 10, 2011 |author=Haviv Rettig Gur |newspaper=[[The Jerusalem Post]] |date=December 30, 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The questions and answers were later posted on [[IsraelPolitik]], the country's official political blog.<ref name=NYTs>[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/weekinreview/04cohen.html The Toughest Q's Answered in the Briefest Tweets], Noam Cohen, ''[[The New York Times]]'', January 3, 2009. Retrieved January 5, 2009.</ref>

The impact of blogging on the mainstream media has also been acknowledged by governments. In 2009, the presence of the American journalism industry had declined to the point that several newspaper corporations were filing for bankruptcy, resulting in less direct competition between newspapers within the same circulation area. Discussion emerged as to whether the newspaper industry would benefit from a stimulus package by the federal government. U.S. President [[Barack Obama]] acknowledged the emerging influence of blogging upon society by saying, "if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, then what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void, but not a lot of mutual understanding".<ref>[http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20091103/OPINION16/91102031/1004/OPINION/Journalists-deserve-subsidies-too Journalists deserve subsidies too] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140324134110/http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20091103/OPINION16/91102031/1004/OPINION/Journalists-deserve-subsidies-too |date=March 24, 2014 }}, [[Robert W. McChesney]] and [[John Nichols (journalist)|John Nichols]], ''Delaware Online'', November 3, 2009. Retrieved November 10, 2009.</ref> Between 2009 and 2012, an [[Orwell Prize]] for blogging was awarded.

In the late [[2000s]], blogs were often used on business websites and for [[grassroots]] [[political activism]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Lain Kennedy |first=Joice |title=Job Interviews for Dummies |date=2008-01-03 |publisher=[[Wiley (publisher)|Wiley Publishing, Inc.]] |isbn=9780470177488 |edition=3rd |location=Indianapolis |pages=197 |orig-date=2007, the majority was completed by this year}}</ref>