I don’t think of any of the sites here as blogs, actually. Drudge is a news aggregator, TMZ is a corporate creation of Warner Bros., and The Corner feels more like a bulletin board or usenet group for print-media pundits (which is basically what it is). HuffPo’s blog is more traditional in terms of format but obviously unorthodox in the celebrity of some of the contributors and the sheer volume involved. Gun to my head, I’d have said either dKos, for its (somewhat exaggerated) mystique within the party, or possibly TPM for the number of journalists who seem to read it. The influence of the righty blogosphere, such as it is, is as a sort of supplement to Drudge, aggregating obscure stories and trying to inject them into the national media’s bloodstream. That’s weak but it ain’t nothing.

Here’s a sobering comparison. It’s hard to argue with Sklar choosing HuffPo in light of that graph, but it also feels strange crediting a site known mainly to righty bloggers for the spectacular bursts of filth and nuttiness it occasionally emits for holding huge sway. Nor does it seem to be any kind of guiding light in the leftosphere from what I can tell, its amazing traffic notwithstanding. Maybe it’s the newsy side that people are reading, as a sort of left-wing alternative to Drudge?

Link: sevenload.com