Dan Conover Takes On The Newspapers

As someone who as seen the “journalists vs bloggers” debate iterated a few dozen times more than I really care to, I’m interested when new factors are put in either side of that equation. One thing I have noticed from the journalist side of this is that they tend to mention virtues of professional journalists that I don’t really see much in practice. They talk about how how good it is to “be fact checked.” However whenever I’ve seen major articles on topics I’m deeply familiar with, they always contain egregious errors of fact. It’s the same thing with the idea of being professionally edited. If that’s the case, why are so many modern articles written in that florid, overwrought prose that is strong on “story” and light on fact? Is that really what that are edited to?

This brings me to Dan Conover. He’s been the editor of a newsroom and up until very recently he was a working reporter. He’s also been a blogger for a goodly long while, and groks the online world quite well. When he starts refactoring this equation, I pay attention. Here is Dan’s take on one of those unexamined sacred virtues of the newspaper world, the fact that they do investigative journalism. It’s really an interesting read.