James Lileks is moderator and blogger at buzz.mn, a Star Tribune community Web site.

IT’S AN IRON RULE OF BLOGGING: The moment you step away from the computer, something happens. If you’re one of those bloggers who posts now and then – news about the cat, thoughts on Harry Potter – you can take time off. You’re not a public utility. But recent years have seen the rise of news bloggers who not only comment on breaking news, but are expected to comment. They’ve become destination points for people who’ve heard the story and want more. More links, more opinions, more news, more of the event that’s just driven all other subjects off stage. The Star Tribune’s community discussion site,  buzz.mn,  is set up to be a forum for locals to read and discuss any subject, and the night the bridge fell that’s what it was. And more.

I was at the Apple Store in Southdale, miles from the bridge, having a technician look at my iPhone. It rang, which was good news: Hey, it works. The call was my wife, making sure I was OK, and whether I’d heard the news – words that always give you the same cold sluice of fear and excitement. The bridge fell. By the time I was in the parking lot I had the Star Tribune page called up on the iPhone. Biggest story of the year, and like many nowadays, I read it first on the smallest device I own. As the moderator of buzz.mn, I knew I had to get online, fast, and start blogging. About what, though, I had no idea; the news side would cover the event as well as anyone could wish. Once I was online, I simply scooped up as many links as possible and started updating every 10 minutes, with the most recent news on top. The links came from the three tiers of online information: the big professional outfits, including TV; other aggregator blogs, which, like buzz.mn, provided links gleaned by people with good Google-fu; the individual blogs, which had begun to trickle in with reports and photographs.

Moments like these make you realize that things have truly changed: If a tree falls in the forest, it will make a sound, because there’s probably a blogger listening a few yards away. A few bloggers lived in the neighborhood of the bridge, and they started posting firsthand views from the scene. If they had a friend who ran a larger site, their link would move up the chain quickly. Within two hours buzz.mn had a fair summation of the events, with a score of links the reader could use. And it had something else: a nationwide pool of users to compliment the local audience, and offer condolences and observations in the comments sections. On a usual summer night, traffic is slow; buzz.mn might have a 100 readers hanging out. By 10 p.m., there were almost 900 on board, reading, waiting. Times like these, the world shrinks to the dimensions of your backyard.

Which was where I was blogging, incidentally. It’s not traditional journalism, but it’s still the first draft of history – with footnotes, pictures, video and comments from the citizens. Unlike newspapers, there are no space restrictions. There are no deadlines and the presses don’t roll – you work until you sleep, and when you close the laptop you feel a twinge of guilt, because you could keep going for a little while longer.

As newspapers adjust to the online world, they’ll need more than bloggers. They’ll need reporters who carry small movie cameras, so they can put raw footage up as soon as they get back. For that matter, papers need more reporters. If everyone’s banging away at the top story, there’s no one to feed all the needs of the online side, which are ravenous. People have become accustomed to getting more and getting it fast, and that will only accelerate. Finally, newspapers need to have a place for people to go to read and respond immediately, and simply setting up a message board won’t meet their needs. It needs to be permanent. It needs to update on the days when nothing happens, so people become accustomed to checking the site a few times daily. It needs to be the first place people think of when something happens, and they want to share the event with others. Newspapers don’t have to build these sites, of course. But someone else will. It’s likely someone else already has. *