It seems like ancient history, but it wasn’t that long ago that the Blogosphere forced traditional media to re-think a story — that of a senior Congressional politician starting a speech with a yearn for the pre-civil rights era.

The politican was US Rep. Trent Lott. The occasion was (Sen.) Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. The time was December 2002. The outcry led to Lott’s resignation.

Weblogs at Harvard points us to a Shorenstein Center case study of that story, analyzing the events and players.