The AJC, for all its faults, doesn’t engage in advocacy journalism. It probably should.

I agree that consensus about the AJC’s credibility has broken down. Largely, that’s because conservatives have campaigned loud and long to smear any media that doesn’t identify itself as conservative.

I’ve had quite enough of that. Define your terms for advocacy journalism, please. I may agree with you. Show me examples, my friend. Don’t just put that one over the plate as a given and expect the good reader to accept the bias you perceive as fact.

As an advocate, there are different ( and fewer) brands who find the connection with the AJC helpful and valuable.

I would not underestimate the effect of this associative effect on the decisions of the advertisers to find other outlets for their dollars. It is no accident that the online edition cannot find the ad revenue needed to make it economically successful.

For a long time, i have argued that the destiny of the AJC is an on-line version of the Great Speckled Bird, a niche advocate of a narrow social and political perspective. The inability of the AJC to step away from its advocacy in a down market only accelerated the process.

Publishing, that is an industry characterized by high fixed costs that serve as a barrier to entry and a restraint of competition, is dead. Now there is a news content and distribution business characterized by low fixed costs, people intensive and wildly competitive. Until a brand emerges that broad segments of the public trusts, we will live in the wild west. What happens next is the fragmentation of news along social, political and age lines

Wow. There’s some bad blood out there regarding this issue.

ATLmalcontent, I’m a little perplexed as to why you picked a single comment out of what I thought was a very thoughtful and thorough discussion of newspapers vs. bloggers. And in my experience I haven’t found that particular view to be all that pervasive. Many will miss newspapers dearly…myself included.

As I stated in the post you linked to, and on many other occasions, there are many things that bloggers can’t do…due to lack of time and resources. Therefore, the loss of newspapers is a really serious issue for society. And we all know the unanswered question is how do you create a business model that can support investigative journalism if the papers don’t survive. (I know grift wants me to say “when the papers don’t survive” )

But don’t underestimate bloggers and their motives. I have no journalism background and my motive is simple. To support my community. Yes, I inject my opinion into my site, but I also work VERY hard to support an open commenting environment and I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong. And that model works. And where does my credibility comes from? Simply my own online words and actions and little else. If you were to ask many of my readers who they have more faith in…a faceless local blogger or the AJC, you might be surprised by the result.

Has this motive of supporting my community paid off? I think so. I now have more monthly visitors than any GA/Atlanta blog I can find, including Peach Pundit. So now I have a double motive. Support my community, which I do with news and commentary, but also with event announcements and free advertising for local businesses, AND to keep my site relevent and popular. Can a site like DM support itself? That’s the $64,000 question.

And while I agree that investigative journalism is important, I would say that the newspapers long ago lost the ability to do a valuable service for smaller local communities. While the AJC might do a decent job taking the governor to task on occasion, they are WEAK when it comes to local stories. Reporters today are stretched too thin and often misstate stories in my experience. In fact, the AJC has been pilfering stories from me for a good long time without so much as a thank you or hattip.

As for evidence of bloggers breaking stories…though I can only take credit for some of them…my readers have helped me break many stories over the years including the Trackside Fire, which we reported a full 12 hours before the AJC, resulting in over 8,000 hits in a single day. Also, the Fellini’s robbery comes to mind, which the AJC never reported.

Additionally, I do my own leg work, going to commission mtgs, talking to city officials about issues such as our wi-fi system and development in town and I may soon even venture into the realm of doing book reviews.

What can a blog put up against the journalistic integrity of a newspaper? How about a forum for open discussion and an entire community of support? It can’t spend a day at the Capitol, but it can cover a local community much better than a stretched newspaper.