New Journalism

I saw the film State of Play this week, and it was pretty good (engaging but forgettable). One thing that bugged me though was that it created a false distinction between print media and online media. It portrayed print media as the last bastion of experienced investigative journalists, and portrayed online media as the home of bloggers hired by newspapers to write gossip.

I read a lot of "MSM bloggers". (We really need a name to distinguish them from people like me. By MSM blogger I mean a person who writes a dedicated blog for a newspaper - which is what State of Play was about, too.) The MSM bloggers I read are prestigious, experienced journalists. Their blogs are a delight because they don't need to conform to usual print standards for length or style; they can add lots of online links; and they can be more casual, which often allows them to discuss things they couldn't discuss in a column. Some examples:

- Kady O'Malley's blog Inside the Queensway on Macleans.ca
- Paul Krugman's blog The Conscience of a Liberal on NYTimes.com
- Howard Kurtz's blog Media Notes on WashingtonPost.com

The whole premise of the movie was Luddite: a railing against the new in defence of the old. I wouldn't mind except that it spreads misinformation about the exciting new world of online journalism - an innovation that is not only positive, but also necessary.

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