News-Record.com

It's the journalism that matters.

That's the one aspect of the story in The Times that got overlooked.

Yes, we're blogging. podcasting and soliciting citizen submissions to reconnect with readers. But the overriding reason we're barging into the form is to extend the ability to break news, spur civic engagement, to help readers, to be a watchdog. Pretty much what we're trying to do in the newspaper.

The online channel is different, feels different, looks different and reads different. It's more fluid, so that we can interact with readers and other bloggers. It's endless so that we can post citizen journalism without worry about time or space. It's competitive so that everyone can do it, redefining what it means to get a scoop.

All those things are wonderfully helpful to our core mission, but they aren't our core mission.

"Journalism provides something unique to a culture -- independent, reliable, accurate, and comprehensive information that citizens require to be free. A journalism that is asked to provide something other than that subverts democratic culture. This is what happens when governments control the news, as in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. We're seeing it again in places like Singapore, where news is controlled to encourage capitalism but discourage participation in public life. Something akin to this may be taking root in the United States in a more purely commercial form, as when news outlets owned by larger corporations are used to promote their conglomerate parent's products, to engage in subtle lobbying or corporate rivalry, or are intermingled with advertising to boost profits. The issue isn't just the loss of journalism. At stake is whether, as citizens, we have access to independent information that makes it possible for us to take part in governing ourselves."

That's from "The Elements of Journalism" by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. It shouldn't be missed. It's why we do what we do. It guides our rethinking of the newspaper and the development of the Web site.

Lex was exactly right when this was mentioned at the end of the Times' story:

While the outreach to readers raises questions about the fundamental role of newspapers, and whether they should be leading readers or following them, Mr. Alexander, who is overseeing the online project, said The News & Record was by no means ceding control. "If we came across a story that needed to be done but would make a lot of people unhappy, we'd still do it," he said. "And we'd still take the heat."

Heck, we try to do that every day.