DISQUS

Damn. I was all set to get mad at you again, Dave, and then you went all reasonable and thoughtful on me. Aw, well, next time.

\-\/\/

And now, the First Dog is black, too.

Hard to misspell "44."

Further thoughts for Dave, after his:

I sincerely hope you're right and that pick-and-shovel work of reporters out knocking on doors and meeting sources they've cultivated for years in out-of-the-way coffee shops can be advanced, duplicated or even replaced by group-sourced, collaboratively examined, networked interaction. (I suppose that, some day, it inevitably must be. Telephones, for instance, helped us advance beyond Lincoln Stephens.) The end result we're looking for here is public knowledge and the accountability that brings, thus enabling democracy.

My specific point, though, it that I know of no case in which this has yet happened. The examples of blogospheric success frequently advanced, though sometimes laudable, are nothing like the traditional, journalistic exposes of NSA wiretapping, abuses in Guantanamo, secret prisons in Eastern Europe, scandlous conditions at Walter Reed or so many, many more.

As we've said to one another directly now, Dave, I'll pledge to work with you and others on helping bridge the gaps here -- whether they be of understanding and comprehension of new realities (your position, no?) or also involving actual distinctions (as I suspect).

Now I'm gonna sit and think about all the stuff you've suggested.

When I was a young man, I heard David Burnham describe "investigative reporting" as the finding out of important truths that important people (typically authorities) didn't want you to know. Over 30 years, that's always held up as a good working definition of an essential kind of investigative reporting.

In this sense, your conflation of asking for help with and alternative opinions about a programming issue seems just plain silly, doesn't it? How is the process you describe anything at all like reporters tracking down information important people want to hide?

Yes, it's an "investigative process." And it's important and useful and holds even greater promise for the future But if you truly think that's the same as what we call investigative reporting, it's no wonder we have a hard time understanding one another.

Good old Frank Broder.

Obviously a lot of provocative thought here, but I'm not sure it all leads to your conclusion.

What I do know if that there are also some mighty squishy contentions. Most importantly, your reference to Freddie and Fannie, and the apparent proof that regulation doesn't help, is just plain wrong. Please see "Private sector loans, not Fannie or Freddie, triggered crisis," at http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/53802....

Among the pertinent facts there:
* More than 84 percent of the subprime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending institutions.
* Private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year.
* Only one of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006 was directly subject to the housing law that's being lambasted by conservative critics.

t's impossible to argue with Nichols' conclusion -- that journalism is more important than the medium or the ownership that produces it. But I fear his failure to address the basic reality behind journalism's present troubles leaves his overall argument somewhat barren.

In my view, the problems don’t center on content or ownership. It’s more about the disassociation of revenue from content.

Many newspapers are doing reasonably well in learning to migrate our journalism to new platforms; we need to do so better (and faster), but I have near 100 percent confidence in our ability to extend into a new multiplatform, multichannel world with our values and mission intact.

The key challenge is to figure out what to do about the fact that advertisers no longer need us as much as they once did. Traditionally, our business was to aggregate audiences and then sell them to advertisers. Doing so financed our expensive pursuit of the mission.

But advertisers increasingly can find audiences elsewhere, or even bypass the notion of audiences by plugging directly into consumers, as with company websites, eBay or Monster.

Fortunately, the audience model still works; it just doesn’t work as well as it once did. We have lost the unique advantages (unfair advantages, to be frank) of operating as monopolies with high barriers against competition.

Now we have to learn to behave differently. Financing newspapers or newsrooms with foundation money won’t change that. (If you think monopoly newspapers lost touch with readers, wait till you see what a non-profit newsroom does.)

I see salvation in embracing a capitalist, audience-centered model even more closely. As Marshall Field famously said to a recalcitrant clerk, “Give the lady what she wants.”

Don't protest that that's just a prescription for more celebrity pregnancy news or ever-more graphic hanging videos (though somebody will emerge to provide all that, God knows). If we’re truly responsive to the needs of civic life in this society, we’ll find robust, attentive audiences willing to pay, one oway or another, for what we provide.

As Nichols rightly asserts, honest, fearless journalism is essential for self-government. And because it’s essential, it will be economic. It is for us to discover how to make that connection in new ways, replacing the eroding old ways that no longer suffice.