Jay Rosen, New Yorker Journalistikprofessor, fetzt sich öffentlich mit seinem Kollegen (Ja, so etwas soll’s geben ;-), dem Pulitzer-Preisträger und Journalistikdozent an der Elon University in North Carolina, Michael Skube. Die Einzelheiten der Kontroverse sind bei der LA Times nachzulesen), sind allerdings für mich nicht so spannend. Umso mehr aber die Liste, die Rosen zusammengestellt hat, um zu zeigen, welche Leistungen Blogs in den vergangenen Jahren erbracht haben. Es ist eine Mischung aus Kriegs-, Innenpolitik und Wirtschaftsthemen, mit teilweise direkten Wirkungen wie Rücktritten oder juristischen Klagen.
Nach Datum sortiert und etwas gekürzt, sieht das dann so aus:
- 2003 to present. Groklaw becomes the go-to source for coverage of SCO vs. IBM. Law blog — one obsessive blogger, plus readers — takes on saturation coverage of key lawsuit involving open-source software, becomes an authoritative source of knowledge for the case’s participants, who have never seen anything like it.
- 2004 08, Chris Allbritton goes to Najaf. Reporting for his reader-supported blog Back-to-Iraq.com during the major fighting around the Imam Ali Shrine, Allbritton manages to get inside to interview members of the Mahdi army and report what’s happening. He’s then arrested by the Najaf police under live fire but lives to write about it.
- 2004 09, Joseph Newcomer provides comprehensive examination of disputed Killian memos in CBS report. A computer typesetting expert, he uses his knowledge to cast serious doubt on the authenticity of documents „60 Minutes“ relied on in its story on President Bush’s Air National Guard service.
- 2005 08, Unbossed.com does a series on toll roads as a business with a track record. Among the findings: „Local governments in Colorado have agreed to deliberately impede traffic on existing highways near a toll road in order to protect the toll roads‘ investors.“
- 2005 to present. Citizens construct Katrina timeline. Members of the ePluribus Media community create a detailed timeline of key events before, during and after the Aug. 29, 2005, hurricane made landfall at New Orleans, with over 500 events, fact-checked and sourced. It continues to be updated as the story stretches onward.
- 2006 02, NASA political appointee resigns. Graduate student and science blogger Nick Anthis finds out that 24-year-old George Deutsch, a political appointee accused of trying to silence NASA climate scientists, lied on his resume about having a college degree. Deutsch resigns.
- 2006 02, EPluribusMedia investigates the politics of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. In a three-part series pulling together a lot of scattered information, the citizen journalism site details the impact of politics on the funding, diagnosis and treatment of Iraq war veterans suffering from PTSD.
- 2006 08, Porkbusters, the Sunlight Foundation and TPM Muckraker expose congressional earmarks and the senator who placed a secret hold on a bill to put information about federal fund recipients online.
- 2006 12, DallasFood.org investigates Noka Chocolate. Gourmet food blog provides the only in-depth investigation into „world’s most expensive“ chocolatier’s deceptive marketing practices.
- 2006-2007 Talking Points Memo drives the U.S. Attorneys firings into the national spotlight. Mixing old-fashioned legwork with perseverance and lots of help from readers over several months, Josh Marshall and his TPM Media empire accumulate evidence „from around the country on who the axed prosecutors were, and why politics might be behind the firings.“
- 2007 06, EdCone.com scoops News & Record on its own layoffs. As the paper clams up, its staffers, ex-staffers and readers use blog comments and e-mail to create the only detailed public account of layoffs at the daily newspaper in Skube’s backyard.
- 2007 06, Pet-food scandal ignites blogosphere. Pet owners frustrated with the limitations of the news media self-organize into a national network of sites and share news about tainted foods that may have killed thousands of pets across the country.
- 2007 to present. Blogger Michael Yon reports from Iraq. Supported primarily by donations from readers, independent journalist Michael Yon — a former Green Beret — is spending 2007 embedded with soldiers whose courage and sacrifice he admires, and whose stories he tells, mostly recently from Anbar province.