Based in New York City, the blog Talking Points Memo (TPM) has recently put in its word on the ‘can bloggers be journalists’ debate by uncovering a national political scandal with readers’ help.

In December, John Marshall, who owns TPM, posted a link to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette story about the firing of Arkansas’ US attorney. Soon, Marshall saw a pattern; many attorneys were being replaced. With the notion that these replacements might be political, Marshall reached out to his 100,000 readers, asking them if they knew anything about attorney firings.

Readers accumulated information, and shared it instantaneously on TPM. Democrats took up the cause, and now a senior justice official has resigned.

Many say that even bloggers who write cannot be journalists because they usually don’t do much field reporting. Further, defenders of the mainstream media often criticize bloggers’ use of impolite language.

Marshall sees blogging as a new kind of political conversation. "It's totally in the tradition of political pamphleteering,” he said. “Individually, I think some of it isn't necessarily that pretty, but I think the whole thing altogether is a great thing."

Marshall and TPM do not attempt neutrality, but relish the informality and ease of opinion-based reporting.

Henry Copeland, the man who made blogging a career possibility with the idea of selling advertisements on blogs, agreed.

"A newspaper is a boat, a highly evolved mechanism designed and built to float in water,” said Copeland. “Blogs are bikes, built to cruise in another environment. Now, you can pull a bunch of planking off a boat and add wheels and pedals, but that won't make it as light and maneuverable as a bike."

Source: Los Angeles Times