The New York Times has another of its "bloggers and photobloggers were first on the scene" articles in today's paper as part of its expansive coverage of the London terror attacks. There's also a mention in the article of the new "citizen's journalism" movement and a quote from Dan Gillmor about the growing importance of on-the-ground bloggers to the traditional news gathering process:

"A lot of what's being done by the citizen-journalist will be most useful as people start pulling together the best images and stories. There was a cliché that journalists write the first draft of history. Now I think these people are writing the first draft of history at some level, and that's an important shift."

Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine has been watching the news reports from London with a careful eye and has a lot to say on the symbiosis between grassroots bloggers and Big Media:

"As I also noted yesterday, it is now reflex for the BBC and the venerable Times of London to solicit stories from the public and to publish them. Of course, they didn't have to ask. All they had to do was go reading their local bloggers... I'm also struck by the new definition of news. As I wandered through the London blogs listed by subway station, I found, again and again, bloggers using their new tool just to tell their family and friends, "I'm fine." That is the news that matters most, isn't it? Also: I found Technorati -- its search and its tags -- useful in finding London bombing news and reaction yesterday."