Journalists Marc Glaser and William Bastone discuss Barstone’s site, The Smoking Gun and topics related, on NPR’s MediaShift site.
The Smoking Gun started 11 years ago as a side project for Village Voice organized-crime reporter William Bastone. It has since been sold to Time Warner, but its core mission and staff size hasn’t changed; it’s still three folks running the show, hunting down incriminating documents and digging up dirt.
One of the reasons I’m pointing to this interview is Bastone’s call for original reporting.
There are a lot of people commenting on stuff and riffing on things and blogging, but actually reporters breaking stories on the Net — there are a lot fewer than I would expect.
I get a kick out of the Gawkers and Defamers of the world, but how much of that is a news story, they broke a news story. It really isn’t. It’s a high profile site, but can you identify a story that they broke? If you had asked me 10 years ago, I would have thought there would be a huge scrum for [breaking news online], and it may get to that point, but I don’t really see it.
This is something I think about regularly. I’d love to move to an original reporting format on AdPulp. The thing that prevents it (for now), is the fact that I already have an all consuming day job.
