"Remember when a single investigative reporter with the temerity to demand a decent living... could pull the curtain back on one of the most powerful and secretive organizations on the face of the earth?"

These days are not over, argued Dean Starkman, Editor of the Colombia Journalism Review's business section this week (he cites The Guardian's Nick Davies and his work on breaking the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World as a contemporary example) but they are in danger.

The threat, according to Starkman, comes from media gurus like Clay Shirky, Jeff Jarvis, and John Paton, who advocate networked, crowd-sourced, web-based and free-for-users journalism.

This, group, who Starkman calls the 'Future of News' of 'FON' consensus, are in his eyes guilty of sometimes expressing a "light regard for journalism itself". More than that, he accuses them of wanting traditional journalistic institutions to be dismantled and replaced with a "networked alternative" that is "hazy at best". Most of all, he argues that a networked, open media does not provide a basis for serious, public interest journalism, which is "usually expensive, risky, stressful, and time-consuming" and "isn't just another tab on the home page."

Starkman writes: "The cruel truth of the emerging networked news environment is that reporters are as disempowered as they have ever been, writing more often, under more pressure, with less autonomy, about more trivial things than under the previous monopolistic regime." He concludes by advocating paywalls and calling for people to find a way to "re-empower reporters".

Cue a general media kerfuffle.

Perhaps the strongest disagreement came from Steve Buttry of the Journal Register Company. The ideological differences are not surprising, given that Buttry is director of community engagement and social media at a company that is a strong advocate of what Starkman calls the 'FON' consensus. Also, as Buttry notes in his article, five of the people who Starkman criticizes are his "friends" and one-time colleagues.

Buttry is strong in his condemnation, calling Starkman's article a "rant" and a "weak, wandering blast from the past". He hits back, arguing that FON-style reporters have produced outstanding investigative journalism, citing "Texas Tribune, California Watch and ProPublica (already a Pulitzer winner)" as examples. He gives mentions Homicide Watch a community blog by Laura Amico, which "does a better job of tracking crime in the District of Columbia than any traditional newsroom".

Stijn Debrouwere counters Starkman on a different level, saying "Investigative reporting is important, but it's not the only kind of important journalism out there." Debrouwere cites sources at the Knight Foundation and the Project for Excellence in Journalism saying that other important tasks for journalists are authenticating and making sense out of sources, solving problems and connecting people. If all news organizations only produced investigative content, writes Debrouwere, "you get an organization like Amnesty International, whom I actually donate to, but they're not a media company".

Other commentators make the point that you don't have to choose between the FON crowd and old-fashioned investigative reporting.

"It doesn't have to be a binary question," writes Mathew Ingram at GigaOm. Institutions like The Guardian both do traditional investigative journalism and invest heavily in new digital tools (see, incidentally, this piece by Al Jazeera English about The Guardian's investigative reporting)

Emily Bell, a colleague of Starkman's at the CJR and former online editor of The Guardian, agrees "this is not an either/or equation". More, importantly, she writes that "the suggestion that the Internet has "disempowered" journalists is just not true".

As if to underline her point, Paul Lewis, special projects editor for The Guardian gave a TED lecture about crowd-sourced investigative journalism. Lewis uses the examples of the deaths of Ian Tomlinson and of Jimmy Mubenga.

"I believe this can be a really empowering process," says Lewis, "It can enable ordinary people to hold powerful organizations to account."

Journalists might enjoy a good argument, but serious accountability journalism and digital media can be friends.

Sources: CJR: (1) (2), Steve Buttry, Mathew Ingram, Stijn Debrouwere, Guardian (1) (2) Al Jazeera English, TED