Bloggers without newspapers
I was especially curious to hear what former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, the man behind the best show ever on TV, “The Wire,” would have to say during the Senate hearing Wednesday on the future of newspapers.
He didn’t disappoint.
Arianna Huffington had just boasted about the Huffington Post's investigative chops, noting 10 full-time investigative reporters on her 60-person staff.
She rattled off scoops that citizen journalists were reporting that supposedly would be lost without newspapers.
In response to such huffy pronouncements by bloggers (bless our hearts) about their emerging place in the media landscape, Simon said:
“The day I will run into a Huffington Post reporter at a zoning board hearing is the day we’ll reach equilibrium.”
To their credit, many of our local bloggers will do precisely that.
But they still have the luxury of choosing pet causes or issues. Newspapers feel an obligation — and readers fully expect for us — to do and be much, much more.
Newspapers still do most of the scut work from which bloggers draw inspiration — and content.
For free.
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