Do you think any researchers for the beeb or similar

[Guy_Montag]

read this site?

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Yes - they had one of the administrators

(EarlG, I think) on World Service TV to comment on something (Katrina, I think again) a few weeks ago. Whether they regularly read it is another matter, but they know of it as a left wing American site.

[mwooldri]

2. I would have thought that BBC Monitoring...

... would be watching the major discussion groups such as this one. I know that BBC Monitoring is all about listening and making reports on what other media are saying about issues. If something significant of newsworthiness were to break here they'd know about it.

[Oggy]

3. Have you ever noticed

That between 3 days and about 2 weeks after a major topic has been discussed on DU it appears in the media ( I have noticed longer lead times such as 3 years in the case of peak Oil ). The Independant and Guardian both seem to follow what is being discussed.

I don't have any examples to back this up as I don't keep a record as such, and I'm too busy to spend the time looking back and researching, but I have noticed it generally since I've been posting here.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. DU discusses things at the same time as the rest of the Internet

With something like 10,000 people regularly posting here, just about anything getting discussed on the web will get picked up here. You'd never know if the media got it from us, or DailyKos, or Yahoo groups, or Usenet, or ...