Et Tu, Brute?

It was satisfying for a few reasons to read Robert Kuttner’s piece on Internet journalism in the March/April issue of Columbia Journalism Review. The article acknowledges a change in thinking among old-school journalists, who are beginning to understand that the Internet is not so much a distraction from print (aka serious) journalism as it is a lifeline for increasingly imperiled newspapers and the best of what they have to offer.

This article gives hope to those of us who would like to preserve the newspaper tradition of investigation and original reporting. In addition, the Kuttner piece quietly rebukes an article last year in the New Yorker that compared Internet journalism’s content to that of a church newsletter. The author? Dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Nick Lemann.

Kuttner’s piece also proposed we stop lumping all bloggers together and recognize that some blogs are more reportorial than others. He proposed, perhaps facetiously, we start a category called CROGS–that is Carefully Researched Web Logs.