Reporter Uses Blogs For First Time

Here's an interesting article by Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher, the newspaper industry magazine, about his first experience doing research via blogs. Via AlterNet. Read, but here's his conclusion:

And here's the nut of it: In the blogosphere, it's often asked, on both the left and right, "Why can't the mainstream media get to the bottom of these scandals like the blogs sometimes do?" Of course, one of the reasons is, they are simply too timid. But I understand another part of the answer now: No single news outlet has anywhere near the army of workers who toil, unpaid, at odd hours, for the larger blogs. To compete in this regard, Gannett would have to shut down some of its local papers and put their news staffs to work for USA Today. Then USA Today could throw a battalion of reporters at a hot issue – like some blogs now can, and do.

I do this because it's fun and keeps me off the street and out of trouble. If I had to do it for a living I have no idea what would happen. Probly get my ass canned forthwith.

It appears to me that some of the horse n' buggy media might benefit from having a coupla researchers primarily to check the blogosphere. All these outfits have websites, so they have computer-savvy people. How hard could it be to train a reporter to surf the blogosphere? On second thought, it might be easier to train the 'puter guy to be a reporter.