A.P. To Distribute Nonprofits' Investigative Journalism

The NY Times is reporting on the Associated Press's decision to distribute the investigative journalism of four nonprofit groups. This ought to benefit both struggling newspapers, which have cut investigative staff, and the nonprofits where, we can hope, many of those laid-off journalists are plying their trade. It's refreshing to see this kind of forward thinking coming out of an organization not normally known for its progressiveness. "Starting on July 1, the A.P. will deliver work by the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and ProPublica to the 1,500 American newspapers that are A.P. members, which will be free to publish the material. The A.P. called the arrangement a six-month experiment that could later be broadened to include other investigative nonprofits, and to serve its nonmember clients, which include broadcast and Internet outlets."

Comments

Funny if not so tragic

[jmorris42]

> It's refreshing to see this kind of forward thinking coming out of an organization
> not normally known for its progressiveness.

If by 'progressive' you mean they are slightly to the right of Marx, ok. Guess I better take a note that the word has been redefined again.

Or are we discussing a different AP than the Associated (with terrorists) Press that runs Al Qaeda and Hezbollah propaganda as news... because their 'stringers' are active members. The same AP that could learn lessons in objectivity from Pravda?

Now to this 'novel' notion. It is just a formalization of long standing practice. As the old media have been dying they have long since lacked the resources to do actual journalism and have been printing press releases as news for years. Of course only SOME organizations get that sort of treatment and they always match the political views of the typical newsroom. Don't expect to see Heritage or Cato getting their work carried as is as news.

But even when a press release isn't run over the wire as a news article it is common to see them lightly reworded by a 'journalist' and run as a news article. Not just politics, it is big in tech and business news too.

This sort of thing is why I giggle every time some MSM dead man walking goes droning on about the advantages of traditional news, the research, the editors and fact checkers, etc. vs bloggers in their underwear. It used to be true but not for years. Read a NYT or CNN article or two. Note the spelling and grammar errors. If an article were still going past several humans before hitting print/web wouldn't ONE of them used the spell checker or caught the grammar glitches? Now read a couple where YOU know as much or more about the subject as the reporter. Bet you found factual errors didn't ya. If they still had editors and fact checkers shouldn't they have caught those? If they still had humans in the loop would the NYT have let Jason Blair get away with passing off his mashups of stolen copy and outright fiction until people OUTSIDE the paper caught him?

It's all a fiction, you are getting the same opinion passed off as fact in a modern newspaper or TV news piece as you get on a blog, difference is bloggers really do get fact checked by other bloggers and the best and most reliable over time float to the top of the page view rankings.

Re:No better than the rest

[Beelzebud]

Your facts are flat out wrong. Plame WAS a covert agent, and she has testified under oath that at the time of her outing she was covert...