I’m not sure I’m convinced. There is a provocative long piece that went up this morning on Politico’s front page, about a new generation of pundits like Ezra Klein and Andrew Ross Sorkin. It’s 1,639 words, by my count. And the author: Michael Calderone. But long doesn’t necessarily mean deep. I wonder what he could have done with a thousand fewer blog posts.
The Audit
01:02 PM - April 9, 2010
“And now, more than 4,000 posts later…”
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Good point, and it strikes me that any journalist who is reasonably honest about the business should be able to acknowledge that letting a Thousand Twits/Blogposts Bloom has taken a real toll on the breadth and depth of reporting. This is not to pick on Politico, which is a good and interesting web site with fine reporters and editors. But many days I read it and yearn for those quite smart, qiute good reporters to take another six minutes, or even three hours, and breathe and think a little more.
Nor is the New York Times, my home, immune to this. We recently had a posting for a new bureau which spoke of the desire to have reporters who write deep & long and analytic and funny and quick (So far, so good), and also blog & twitter and write "stylish" briefs and so on and on and on. I sympathize with the desire to accomplish all of this, as this to some extent is a map of our new world. At the same time, this speaks to our unwillingness to acknowledge that more and more and more really can be less sometimes.
This should not be taken as a j'accuse, other than to point that accusing finger at all of us in these parlous times. But we most certainly lose nuance and dollops of intelligence--the post before this, on Jesse Eisinger's terrific piece, is a case in point. He absolutely could not have produced that piece had been filing 4,000 blog posts and god knows how many tweets over the past year.
Best
Michael
#1 Posted by Michael Powell, CJR on Sun 11 Apr 2010 at 04:38 PM