There’s a nicely done article on the front page of the LA Times today. It starts out by explaining how Josh Marshall and his various Talking Points Memo operations (especially TPM Muckraker) may well end up driving Attorney General Alberto Gonzales out of office. TPM, more than any other single media institution, is the driving force behind the burgeoning US Attorney scandal. Anyone who claims that what the TPM crowd did on the US Attorney story isn’t “journalism” is, well, wrong.
What’s really interesting about the LA Times story is how attentive it is to what makes bloggers doing journalism different from MSM journalists.
All of this from an enterprise whose annual budget probably wouldn’t cover the janitorial costs incurred by a metropolitan daily newspaper.
“Hundreds of people out there send clips and other tips,” Marshall said. “There is some real information out there, some real expertise. If you’re not in politics and you know something, you’re not going to call David Broder. With the blog, you develop an intimacy with people. Some of it is perceived, but some of it is real.”
Marshall’s use of his readers to gather information takes advantage of the interactivity that is at the heart of the Internet revolution. The amount of discourse between writers and readers on the Web makes traditional journalists look like hermetic monks….
In much of its work, TPM exhibits a clearly identified political agenda. In this, it is no different from dozens of other blogs across the political spectrum. It distinguishes itself by mixing liberal opinion with original reporting by its own staff and actively seeking information from its readers.
The article also briefly but effectively sets out the MSM/blogger debate.
[Bloggers] are nearly the opposite of the sort of coverage presented in traditional media, whose coverage at least attempts to be neutral on questions of policy. This neutrality is a favorite target of bloggers who say that mainstream journalism objectivity disguises hidden biases of the form, if not the writer. The bloggers contend that these biases can render neutrality into bland, even neutered reporting that rewards those intent on manipulating it.
Many critiques from both sides of the blogging-MSM divide are accurate, if sometimes misplaced. The chief criticisms of blogging from defenders of the MSM are, one, the pajama charge – that is, bloggers are not professional journalists and don’t do much reporting (thus the image of them sitting at home in their pajamas) – and, two, the incivility charge, that many bloggers use impolite language.
Most bloggers, in fact, are not journalists and do little if any reporting. But most bloggers don’t claim to be journalists. They’re bloggers. The incivility charge is true too. Many bloggers use bad language, but so occasionally does the New Yorker, and no one accuses it of lacking manners.
Finally, the article talks about how important Blogads has been in making it possible for a lot of bloggers to make at least a few bucks from their sites, and for a few bloggers to support themselves.
The mere fact that this article appears on the front page of the LA Times strikes me as quite a good thing. The generally fair-minded treatment of the subject is a bonus.
The term “journalist” has no agreed meaning. It is not a profession — like law or medicine or architecture — because there is no professional body that sets admission criteria and administers sanctions (however arbitrary). Everyone is a journalist, or no one: take your pick.
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The more interesting question is: which institutions and individuals are most influential, and why. By that measure, the Times article usefully throws light on the valuable, or horrific depending on one’s point of view, role TPM etal have played on the Gonzalez matter. That is a new development — an opening up of the media industry to new voices and new methods of collecting useful information — that will have a profound impact on U.S. politics among other things.
Hey, I do some of my best journalism while sitting at home wearing… often less than pajamas đŸ™‚
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Like my posts about the port security bill, South Dakota’s abortion ban and the Sioux, and most of the research for my piece about voter turnout in New Orleans (that one took me about two weeks to piece together). I can’t imagine a sensible definition of “real journalism” that doesn’t cover those. Journalism doesn’t have to happen in an office or in the field (though I do that, too).
Too much information!! đŸ˜‰
That’s how you can tell this is a blog and not a newspaper đŸ™‚
…are definitely not what is conventionally considered blogs. They really are journalistic operations. I’ve been reading TPM and its various affiliates for several years. Marshall, and his compatriots, seem to be measured in a journalistic sense. Just the facts ma’am. They definitely have a liberal bias, which should be evident from the facts that they select to report, but the facts that they do report seem to be correct.