One of the arguments that people–and by people I mean print journalists–make for the inability of newspapers to move online is the claim that the level of reporting would suffer because news outlets, due to the smaller levels of revenue available online, would have to close foreign bureaus and layoff staff and just generally not be able to do as much reporting as they have traditionally done. Fair enough. The loss of solid reporting would be a loss to society. However, that argument can only hold water if the two basic assumptions underpinning it–that quality reporting can’t be accomplished without a wide network of standing bureaus and that online reporting is inherently inferior to its print cousin–are actually true. I’ve encountered a couple of things in recent weeks that lead me to believe that neither is.
The first has been the coverage of the demonstrations in Iran. While The New York Times has mostly reported on the press releases and statements of the most hardline Ayatollahs and the dismal to the point of being pathetic Ahmadinejad, Andrew Sullivan on his blog The Daily Dish has been doing actual reporting based on Twitter tweets and emails and on information gleaned from people who have connections with family and friends inside Iran. This is reporting. And this is why, when a very important and respected group of Ayatollahs came out against the recent election, all the big news outlets were slack-jawed in their disbelief while Andrew and his readers were not.
The second piece of reporting has had to do with the sudden resignation last week by Governor Sarah Palin. (For the sake of the argument I am presenting, I offer no opinions for or against Gov. Palin. This has to do with reporting facts, not opinions.) While the MSM took the Governor’s statement at face value and, even in interviews, tossed her softball questions, online outlets were checking her statements to see what was factual and what wasn’t. Again, the online outlets are reporting while the MSM is passing along press releases.
None of this is new. The MSM let us down in considering the Iraq War. They let us down on torture allegations. They’ve let us down over-and-over again for the longest time. It predates Mr. Bush’s presidency and it has outlived it. The big newspapers and the networks and the other big news outlets have routinely relied on press conferences and government contacts instead of real reporting, which is simply awful and lazy journalism. All the actual journalism that gets done gets shunted into a special category called “investigative journalism” and is done mostly by magazines rather than newspapers and news shows. All the MSM really does is support the status quo, which is what state-supported media are supposed to do. If they are not asking questions about everybody in power all the time (and this is where Fox News also misses the mark: they coddle one side and attack the other) they are not doing their jobs. they have stopped being reporters and started being merely typists and apologists.
I think that the MSM can either adapt or die. I think that journalism suffers from being made into a profession instead of a calling. I think reporters should dig and question and be cynical about politicians and aloof from them. I think that finding ways of supporting them in their current condition is bad for democracy and bad for the Republic.

