2011-07-07
post/7346517419
2009-06-22
post/128011849
2009-06-04
The Telegraph and “Great Journalism”
Sigh.
“Collaborative investigative journalism… feels good because it’s messy,” said Loosemore, “and could work better than the old models.” Oh, yeah? I’d like to see a “messy” collective of Kool-Aid slurping Wikipedians conduct the sort of rigorous analysis necessary for the Telegraph’s recent MPs’ expenses investigation. Can you imagine social media achieving anything like it? Of course you can’t: great journalism takes discipline and training.
(via, via.) Did Milo Yiannopoulos really think this was an example of great journalism? If it is, it’s not the Telegraph that should get the credit, but Heather Brooke, who spent years fighting through the courts to force the information out under the Freedom of Information act.
Meanwhile, campaigns from the likes of MySociety - using, yes, social media and a messy collective of Kool-Aid slurping Twitterers - were instrumental in making sure that MPs didn’t write themselves an exemption. Surely that also deserves a nod, rather than a snide dismissal?
All of those years of work explains why the Telegraph’s source found such a juicy stack of information prepared and ready to leak; it was, after all, meant to be published sooner or later. Claiming recieving a leak and paging through it as “great journalism” seems hopeful at best.
