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Investigative Journalism Being Reborn Through the Web?
Combating the stigma that investigative journalism is dead or dying, the Huffington Post has just launched a new venture to bankroll a group of investigative journalists to take a look into stories about the nation's economy. "The popular Web site is collaborating with The Atlantic Philanthropies and other donors to launch the Huffington Post Investigative Fund with an initial budget of $1.75 million. That should be enough for 10 staff journalists who will primarily coordinate stories with freelancers, said Arianna Huffington, co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post. Work that the journalists produce will be available for any publication or Web site to use at the same time it is posted on The Huffington Post, she said. The Huffington Post Web site is a collection of opinionated blog entries and breaking news. It has seven staff reporters. Huffington said she and the donors were concerned that layoffs at newspapers were hurting investigative journalism at a time the nation's institutions need to be watched closely. She hopes to draw from the ranks of laid-off journalists for the venture."
You can't take the Huff seriously. IT's a political shill site.
This is my sig.
it's really in response to propublica.
http://propublica.org/
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
I believe the big question here is whether the journalists will be provided the protection that the big newspapers could always provide. It is fine to believe in the letter of the constitution but without the backing of a major media conglomerate with deep pockets to go to bat for you when you are sued in indispensible. You may want to say something publicly against corporate America but the fear of repercussions is usually what limits individuals from doing so. So...how would they propose to protect the whistleblowers?
Stay tuned for new sig...
hell, i don't care what their slant is, the more people out there looking at and reporting on the economy and the government, the better. perhaps through all of the crap that comes up we might find a grain of truth
I mean apart from in the US where the media appears to have become scared of actually questioning politicians or holding them to account. Journalism in the UK still seems to find the dirt on politicians and companies and deep investigative exercises are still carried out in lots of different areas.
The basic issue in the US is the partisan nature of both politics and the media, why bother to investigate when its all basically just monkeys throwing shit at a wall. Blogs and the internet are unlikely to change that as its just going to be the same partisan stuff with slightly different shit.
When the likes of Jon Stewart are the finest investigative political journalists that your country has then you know you are in trouble.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0323944/
Shattered Glass is a film about how an investigative journalist, Adam Peneberg, working for Forbes.com in 1996, exposed journalist Stephen Glass for plagiarizing nearly every article he wrote for The New Republic, a well trusted and highly respected journalistic publication.
This was considered one of the first major breakthroughs for online journalism and it happened in 1996. Online news has been filled with investigative journalism for a while.
Even wikileaks can be seen as legitimate investigative reporting and whistle blowing. http://www.wikileaks.org/
Disconnect. Bad plan, darlings. Journalism is undergoing a paradigm shift right now in the same way graphics design underwent it. Before the 1990s, we had separate jobs for typesetting, graphic artist, layout, etc. All that went out the window when the PC came along and suddenly anyone could make a newsletter using PageMaker. The demand for all that graphic design footwork -- needing to hire a team of people to design it, imploded. What came out of it was the versatile graphic designer -- a jack of all trades. Journalism until recently had many different career paths. With the collapse of the printed media and an entire generation growing up used to the idea of instant access to everything, cross-referenced and streaming on demand -- deadlines have gone from a day to a few minutes. How long does it take to get indexed into google so people can search for your article? That time difference is the new deadline. And audiences aren't local anymore -- they are global.
Reconnect. Our collective knowledge is also heavily slanted to the global and national level now. For example, up here in Minnesota, a recent "local" story has been the flooding near Fargo, ND and Moorhead, MN along the Red river. When I asked my friends who would be willing to car pool up with me to help sandbagging efforts last friday (the story had been out for a good week) -- only one of my friends had any knowledge of the event, out of about 15 people I asked. Local news doesn't exist anymore for our generation. Strange, but true. Of course, they ALL knew about major national and global events. Our communities really are losing their geographical ties.
I see the future of journalism being somewhat akin to blogging. Journalists simply pick their own interest and self-direct their energies towards it. Interested parties will, via word of mouth and advertisement, come to know that particular journalist. A one-to-many relationship. The sources for these stories will be the readers of those stories. Slashdot is a decent example of what journalism will come to resemble -- open, online forums that are dedicated to particular communities. But I highly doubt that in the journalism to come that people will simply visit one website for their needs. It'll probably look more like Google news -- RSS feeds that we select and create lists of journalists who are involved in fields we have a mutual interest in.
Journalism will become, much like graphic design, at least half or more self-employed or contract/temp work in the next ten years. And we'll come to know journalists by name, instead of by what network or paper they represent.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Is it left-biased, or reality biased? It seems a lot of people that smear the current American left, have been living in the right wing bubble for the last few decades, and can't fess up to the reality bias that reality has.
Only in American can I consider myself, a centrist progressive. The state of politics here is severely depressing, so anything that pulls us out of the childish, conservative, backward looking rut we've been in, is a plus in my book.
http://www.unfocus.com/
I haven't bought a paper in years, and the free ones that get tossed in my driveway go into the recycling bin. I get all my news off free Internet sites.
Welcome to the 21st century Huffington (and NY times, and Washington Post, et. al.) No bailout loans for those that refused to change until it was too late, or changed and couldn't figure out how to make money at it.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
The Huffington Post is to journalism what an Asian Nike sweatshop is to day care.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
HuffPo is an extreme left-wing wannabe news outlet. By investigate, what they really mean is "smear machine."
I think that whether you like the Huffington Post is beside the point: they're going to pay investigative reporters. For a little while now, lots of people have been concerned about the fact that newspapers are dying off and have asked the question, "How will get get our news now?"
The reason lots of people have said that sites like the Huffington Post can't be considered "replacements" for newspapers is that they don't have investigative reporters that actually find and generate news stories. What they do is more like aggregate news and op-ed pieces, so if newspapers die, they'll have nothing to aggregate. And that's a valid complaint.
However, if these sites start getting big enough to employ their own reporters and they start actually doing their own investigations, then the death of newspapers becomes less of a scary prospect. Right now, the Huffington Post is just one example of people trying to find a business model that allows for real journalism without the need of an actual printed newspaper. If some successful business models are found, then we might just be ok.
But you're pointing out that the Huffington Post has a slant, and that's a fair thing to note. However, print newspapers also each have their own slant, so it's not really anything new.
I'm sure many right wing type people will dismiss your remark out of hand without considering it for a moment, but consider:
1) Which nation did this huge economic disaster start? America, a country that had been under complete Republican rule for 6 of the last 8 years and had undergone many deregulations over the past three decades which directly contributed to this crisis.
2) Which European countries have most felt the economic fallout of this? Iceland and Ireland, the two most free-wheeling democracies in Europe. For years Republicans would use Ireland as an example for us to follow since they had the lowest commercial tax rates in the world. Since Ireland's economy has been in free-fall I haven't heard Republicans mention them at all (I wonder why?).
3) Which European countries have been effected least? Spain and France due to their more conservative banking regulations and greater safety net for people living there.
So take a serious look at the mirror and consider the possibility that Touvan is actually correct--reality really does, in fact, have a left-wing bias (at least in terms of economic policy). The first top economic adviser to Bush 43 resigned shortly into Bush's first term because he was simply ignored and believed their economic policy would be disastrous (paying for wars with tax cuts was an extremely bad idea). It's hard to argue that he was wrong now (it really was even then...).
Is it left-biased, or reality biased? It seems a lot of people that smear the current American left, have been living in the right wing bubble for the last few decades, and can't fess up to the reality bias that reality has.
Only in American can I consider myself, a centrist progressive. The state of politics here is severely depressing, so anything that pulls us out of the childish, conservative, backward looking rut we've been in, is a plus in my book.
Reality is how you spin it. Sure, MSNBC can interview two documentary producers to appear non-biased, but treat them both very differently. HERE is an example.
Yes, NewsBusters is a "right-wing" site, however, they do post the entire transcript so you can make up your own mind.
Additionally, Hall offered almost no tough questions, instead tossing softballs such as "What is your observation, having been [to Afghanistan] recently, regarding the Obama administration's plans?" Uninterrupted, Greenwald was allowed to later assert, "Well, again, remember that many people there believe that troops are not the answer. Troops contribute to the problem." He also instructed that the U.S. should send 17,000 teachers instead of soldiers. At the close of the interview, he complained, "But, I think we all get trapped in, as one of my friends in Afghanistan said, 'Shoot first. Think later.'"
In contrast, on January 9, when MSNBC host David Shuster interviewed John Ziegler about his movie on the media's treatment of Sarah Palin, the anchor got into a heated argument with the filmmaker, repeatedly challenging the "conservative documentary's" thesis and deriding, "John, you and Sarah Palin can't take any responsibility for the fact that she wasn't prepared to run for vice president."
Is it really a journalists job to state as fact that Sarah Palin wasn't prepared to run for VP? Regardless of your "opinion" of Sarah Palin, it's just that, an OPINION, and JOURNALISTS shouldn't be spouting theirs. It's not their job.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
That reality thinks that universal health care is good?
Umm. That's correct. Or is the rest of the world not proof enough for you? You know, the world in which everyone else spends less, per capita, on healthcare than the US while covering more people?
That taxing is generally the best solution instead of cutting programs?
When did that become an either-or decision?
Can someone explain this to me?
Okay, let's see, examples:
1) Evolution is real and happens, creationism is bollocks.
2) Sex education is good, abstinence-only education does not, and has never, worked.
3) Government involvement in industry (regulations for safety, to avoid systemic risk, etc) is, in fact, sometimes a good thing.
4) Government *can* provide useful services that private industry cannot, or cannot offer cheaply and effectively (healthcare and related social safety nets, various infrastructure development, etc).
That's just a few off the top of my head. I'm sure you can come up with others if you just think about it for a few moments.
So why did Obama keep on so many of Bush's economic team? Geithner for example got a promotion from Goldman-Sachs to Bush's TARP administrator to Obama's Treasury Secretary. I'd suggest that there are not quite as many differences between the two parties as many on both sides like to pretend there are. Both are in favor of crony capitalism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crony_capitalism Your (and since you're just repeating the party line here your party's) attempts to place blame on a fantasy deregulation straw man are... unconvincing to those who do more than accept your play on class warfare chords. Both sides are to blame for allowing so many unproductive ventures to survive for so long on the backs of the productive members of society. One of my favorite pieces on the framework for the current crisis (over last 30 years) is this one: http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/national-news/portfolio/2008/11/11/The-End-of-Wall-Streets-Boom
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
The real issue for all online journalists is theft of content. It is difficult to create good content. Therefore it is particularly tough for those that create it if there is no traffic going to their site. Why would they bother?
Trevor
www.tynt.com
Do you know what is being copied from your site
Parent is not flamebait as the Huffington Post actively works to censor comments it doesn't like and then outright bans the user.
So yes, the Huffington Post does appear to be be a shill site and this attempt at investigative journalism should not be taken seriously.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Seems to me this new investment directly addresses your problem with them. Hiring investigative reporters is the best way to become more fact-based.
That depends on what they choose to investigate and the angle they take. They might take the angle that the Bush twins are party-girl lushes and with a straight face, claim that Biden's daughter "has an addiction problem" with cocaine.
OK, here's a better example: Did the recession start under Bush's watch or did it start when Democrats took over congress? Both are true. How do you report it? Looking at Huff-Po's record of distortion and hatred, I don't have high hopes for honest, non-biased reporting.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Newspapers (as in "news" printed on paper) may be dead, or dying due to the medium switching to electronic distribution of information, but Journalism is far from dead.
Far from it, in this age when every prepubescent teen with an agenda can slap an opinion blog and consider it news, it is more important than ever to have professionals discovering, editing and presenting information.
If you don't know what AltaVista is (was), get off my lawn.
You can't take the Huff seriously. IT's a political shill site.
He's not the only one who feels that way. Allow me to quote Wikipedia:
The Huffington Post (often referred to on the Internet as HuffPost or HuffPo) is an American liberal[1] news website and aggregated weblog founded by Arianna Huffington and Kenneth Lerer, featuring various news sources and columnists. The site covers a wide range of topics, including sections devoted to politics, entertainment, media, living, business, and the green movement.
Please read the bold part. Parent stated fact and was downmodded for it.
Mods based on opinion have no place on slashdot and are against the moderator guidelines. The Mod should have posted a reply if he/she disagreed rather abusing moderator power.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
I don't have a source, but I always assumed the line "reality has a liberal bias" was a satirical reference to the phrase "reality-based community", which entered the popular lexicon via a Ron Suskind article entitled Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush. The relevant grafs:
Whenever someone tells me that they think the phrase "reality-based community" is an example of the smug and snide attitude of liberals, I direct them to that article.
There's some great investigative journalism done online at this site. Click and give it a read.
First, if you think that the economic "disaster" can be attributed to a specific political party, then you a playing the part written for you quite nicely.
Second, true free markets are not guaranteed to be always upward moving; failures and downturns are part of the natural process. And there is really nothing wrong with that. When a government gets in the way of the natural progression, it is no longer a free market.
Third, the die was cast for the downturn to become a disaster when big business realized that the Federal government considered them "too big to fail". At that point, they had no reason NOT to take huge risks because they knew that they could socialize the risks and privatize the rewards.
Currently, the disaster is well on its way to a depression, mainly because this country did not use the "good" times to prepare adequately for the bad (thanks President Bush) and are taking steps that, in the long run, will have a negative impact on our economy (thanks President Obama).
I call your O'Neill and Lindsey and raise you a Richardson and Gregg. At least O'Neill and Lindsey almost made it to President Bush's third year in office (roughly half-way through his first term, which is a little more than "shortly"); President Obama's choices barely made it three weeks, if that.
I'm sure many right wing type people will dismiss your remark out of hand without considering it for a moment, but consider:
1) Which nation did this huge economic disaster start? America, a country that had been under complete Republican rule for 6 of the last 8 years and had undergone many deregulations over the past three decades which directly contributed to this crisis.
BZZZTTTT! Wrong! First, Republicans never really controlled anything. Remember "Jumping" Jim Jeffords? He was the Republican who turned Independent to give control of the Senate back to the Democrats after the first Congressional election of Bush's term. Even the next election when Republicans took control of both houses, they only did by a couple of votes and couldn't pass anything without Democrats filibustering it. The next election, Democrats took over congress right about the time the economy tanked. You could just as easily blame congress as the President. Seeing that Congress writes and passes the budget, I think they should take more of the blame, if blaming someone is your goal.
As for deregulation, where did the problems start? Banking? Sure. Who was in charge of the Banking committee when the banks started failing. I'll give you a hint. It rhymes Dodd and Frank (neither of which are Republican).
2) Which European countries have most felt the economic fallout of this? Iceland and Ireland, the two most free-wheeling democracies in Europe. For years Republicans would use Ireland as an example for us to follow since they had the lowest commercial tax rates in the world. Since Ireland's economy has been in free-fall I haven't heard Republicans mention them at all (I wonder why?).
Does Bush run the Irish economy as well? I had no idea. It would appear to me that the problem is that economies grow and shrink naturally. We are in a shrinking trend right now.
3) Which European countries have been effected least? Spain and France due to their more conservative banking regulations and greater safety net for people living there.
Spain and France were in the tank long before this recession hit. You could say that they led the pack.
The first top economic adviser to Bush 43 resigned shortly into Bush's first term because he was simply ignored and believed their economic policy would be disastrous (paying for wars with tax cuts was an extremely bad idea). It's hard to argue that he was wrong now (it really was even then...).
First, the economy did very VERY well during Bush's first six years (minus the 9-11 recession and the recession he inherited). As for paying with wars with tax cuts, national receipts went UP after tax cuts. If the economy sucked, how do the feds raise receipts after a tax cut? Hmmm... Seems as if the facts disagree with you. Maybe you should get away from the mirror and go back and retake Intro to Economics. You might also want to brush up on recent history as well.
Here is a chart that proves what I just said. You will clearly not a drop in tax receipts ending around 2002 and then a sharp increase of government revenue AFTER BUSH'S TAX CUTS!
So please, tell me genius, if the economy sucked during Bush's eight years, as you stated, how was there an increase in tax revenue when taxes were cut? I LAFF at your ignorance of how economies work.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
wikipedia, the source that anyone can edit is chock full of bias and in no way should be used as "fact". ;-)
the use of "liberal" in that sentence is as a descriptor, which in and of itself is - biased.
cue (citation needed) AC post now.
"You can kill the revolutionary, but you can't kill the revolution."-- Fred Hampton
We are all biased - I'm biased, you are biased, he's biased. In and of itself, that doesn't have to be a bad thing - bias can be a hell of a motivator.
If $Journalist investigates $Politician because $Politician is a member of $Party and $Journalist thinks $Party are a bunch of crooks, and $Journalist's bias makes him keep digging until he finds something out and reports it, that is GOOD.
However, it is a question of reputation: If I know that $Journalist has a hate-on for $Party, I can weight what $Journalist write accordingly. If I know that $Journalist has a hate-on for $Party and lets that bias color his reporting, I can take that into account. If, on the other hand, I know that $Journalist has a hate-on for $Party, and as a result is especially scrupulous on his checking of his facts, I can take that into account as well.
If $Biased_as_Hell_website hires investigative reporters, but is careful not to spike stories from them just because it goes against their bias, then I might read them even if their bias goes against my own. But $Biased_as_Hell_website is going to have to PROVE to me, every day, that they are trying to keep their facts separate from their opinions. And if I get a whiff that they aren't, then I will ignore them from that moment onward.
And if $Journalist gets a reputation for ignoring "inconvenient facts", for going soft on his friends and hard on his foes, then I will blow him off as well.
And THAT is what is important - that these "New Media" types establish reputations I can use to judge their reporting. Be up-front with your bias - at least with DailyKos and Rush I know their biases, and can at least begin to apply a correction factor. But when somebody tries to pretend "Oh, me? I'm not biased, trust me" - I know they are lying to me, I just don't know in which direction to correct for it.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Did the recession start when we cut taxes with a surplus of money or years later after two wars ate into the available funds leftover from "giving the extra money back?"
Nah, had to be 10 months after the Democrats took control...that makes MUCH more sense.
(Here's the answer to your question: Anyone who doesn't blame the Republicans and Bush's leash on Congress from 2001-2007 is full of shit. The Democrats get some blame, but I reduce it some by considering the Rove-ian campaign that was led from 9/11 and on to make every Democrat look unpatriotic for questioning Bush's policies. Between that and Bush's grip on Congress, they had little effect on changing the money spending, tax cutting policies. After 2007, the Dems have no excuse and get the full blame for helping run it all into the ground by failing to change what the previous 6 years massively fucked.)
Wikipedia says that he worked at an investment consulting firm in 1985, but it is likely that he was an analyst, not a quant (based on the timing and the description of the firm...):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_F._Geithner#Early_career
Starting in 1988, he held various public positions. The previous Secretary of the Treasury, Hank Paulson, was at one time CEO of Goldman Sachs, perhaps you have your wires crossed?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Here in the reality-based community "liberal" and "political shill" are not synonyms.
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Are you seriously suggesting a healthcare system based on the individual charity of doctors? An open source healthcare system, perhaps, where you get your chemotherapy from a sourceforge? Don't get me wrong, many of them are wonderful people -- I'm married to one and she's a wonderful, charitable person -- but they also leave medical school with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and even if they were willing to work for free, I doubt Pfizer is going to send you your free chemo drugs.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.