What are some instances when bloggers have reported news before the mainstream media has?

I'm writing a paper on the evolution of elections in America. One of the things I am discussing is the impact that the growth of social media has had on election campaigns. What I really need are some examples of political news stories that were first uncovered and reported on by political bloggers, and then those stories became widely reported in the mainstream media. I am certain that this has occurred at least a few times, but beyond George Allen's "macaca" debacle in 2006, I can't remember any. Can anyone help me out here?

What are some instances when bloggers have reported news before the mainstream media has?
The latest "Bittergate" was told on the Huffington post by a blogger before it hit mainstream media.





Huffington is a fan of Obama so it slipped by before anyone realized what a bombshell it would be.
Reply:I can't think of any specific examples, but I do have something worth noting. One difference between the sources is that bloggers typically don't need to be concerned with accuracy. You might find numerous cases of them delivering a story first, but you'll also find a much larger number of stories brought forth by bloggers that are later proven false or simply might not be fully accurate.





You can look at just the lottery winning tickets and it paints a much different picture than looking at all of the tickets as a whole.





I bet that a large portion of political stories or hollywood stories first get announced by bloggers, but it can be nearly impossible to find that one lone blog somewhere before the mainstream media reports the story. A lot of the time, the blogger simply had first hand experience or second hand (their friend saw/heard it).