In 1995, as newspapers were beginning to grapple with the seismic structural shift of digital technology, the late James Carey noted that modern American journalism is the product of a particular set of circumstances and a particular moment in history. “What is changing is not some preternatural form of journalism,” he wrote. “All terms of the political equation—democracy, public opinion, public discourse, the press—are all up for grabs.”

Carey’s essay seems prescient when one considers the vague ways that members of the mainstream press and its observers talk about journalism undergoing a “transition.” This conversation mostly concerns the frantic search for an online business model—one that will support the expensive habit of serious reporting—and a scattershot effort to leverage blogs and other forms of digital media. A reconsideration of some of the fundamental assumptions that shape the way we practice journalism, however, is lagging. The transition story is mostly one of adaptation instead of reinvention or rejuvenation.

At the heart of Josh Marshall’s pioneering Web journalism operation is a principle that newspapers in particular should digest. As David Glenn writes in his profile (page 22) of the man behind Talking Points Media, “Marshall believes his role is to bring his readers the best journalistic efforts on a particular topic, even when those efforts have appeared in other publications.”

Marshall appreciates the scoop, but understands that its value has diminished. Getting most stories first is, on most days, meaningless beyond bragging rights. Most scoops are quickly matched. That is not to say that the competition to be first is necessarily a bad thing, and this is especially true for stories that can’t or won’t be easily replicated. But the scoop mentality can produce sloppy or inaccurate stories—and readers don’t care who had it first anyway.

Byron Calame, the former...

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