As the firing of Dan Froomkin illustrates, there is a lot of pressure to "go along" and "get along" in traditional media institutions.

Which is why it’s so important to support your friendly liberal blogger.

A number of vectors all crossing at the same time led to a situation where bloggers have a good chunk of the real estate in the online media environment. Scant online revenues in the early days meant that marquee names like the New York Times and the Washington Post were reluctant to dip their toes in the online pool, just as readers were moving there to get their news. Journalists accustomed to "we speak, you listen" were uncomfortable with the two-way communication stream. And public frustration with poor coverage of the Bush Administration and the war gave us our readership.

But everyone’s a blogger now — ask most people if they read blogs, and if they know them at all they’ll say "yeah, I read The Note." The fact is that marquee media have the money to be able to support the bells and whistles and coverage that could make it hard for blogs to compete. And if we lose this space, it’s gone.

I got into the "indie film" movement in the 80s — Sundance, Sex Lies & Videotape, She’s Gotta Have It. It truly did start off as independent. But the studios quickly figured out that they could capture that audience by starting "indie" divisions of their own, delivering big stars and higher production values, just none of the "edge." And then the "movement" was gone.

That could happen to the blogs. It will happen. If progressives lose this space, we don’t get it back. And our value to the media culture is measurable in the Froomkin episode — had blogs not stepped in and kicked up a shitstorm three years ago, Froomkin wouldn’t have been there as long as he was.

So, support your local blog, whoever it may be. Small or large, we all contribute to a culture of accountability. We make sure things don’t fall down the memory hole, and that the work of people like Marcy Wheeler continues to appear without having to go through the filter of the Washington Post editorial board.

Donate to the Marcy Wheeler Fund