Friday, March 16, 2007

How TalkingPointsMemo Beat the Big Boys on the U.S. Attorney Story

CJR Daily

It's almost too perfect. A mainstream reporter mocks a story a blogger has been working to break, asserting that "it all makes perfect conspiratorial sense!", and that the blogger is "seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely exist," only to backtrack a few weeks later when the story explodes across the front pages of the major dailies.

If you wanted to force the issue -- and we would be surprised if some MSM-hating critic doesn't -- the episode illustrates perfectly how the Washington press corps ignores the blogosphere at its own peril. But the story, and its implications, are actually far more complicated -- and for journalism, heartening -- than that.

That oughta set the hook! I'm playin' ya with light line, folks, it's more fun that way. Go read.

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