How important is blogging?

We used to spend time trying to convince the rest of the world as to the importance and legitimacy of blogging. There are times lately when we wonder if the pendulum might be swinging too far in the other direction. That is, in the direction of attaching too much importance to blogs. Take this, for example from World on the Web:

Determined bloggers who sit at their computers all day have time and room to get stories started in a way beyond the interest or capacity of cable news networks. Newspapers and broadcasters can then push the stories, as they did early this year in rolling down a steep hill Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the majority leader accused of carrying concealed racism without a permit. (Democratic senators such as Robert Byrd of Virginia get a break here. And Democratic politicians such as Howard Dean, who has pressed for the Southern "bubba" vote, has used his own blog to good political effect.)