Ahem
Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter, in the middle of a column that tells bloggers to get off his lawn, has this to say.
But we’re finding this works better for keeping on top of daily flaps than for learning genuinely new information. Bloggers rarely pick up the phone or go interview the middle-level bureaucrats who know the good stuff. It’s a lot easier to chew over breaking stories and bash old media. Where do they get the information with which to bash? Often from, ahem, newspapers.
Go tell that to the dozens of sources I’ve conducted interviews with for this very blog within the last two weeks.
How do you meet your sources, Simon?
Sorry, Simon, but you’re definitely the exception, not the rule.
Hey Thomas,
Most times I just email them and ask for a good phone number and time to call them. If it’s a big organization like the ACLU or something like that I call their main number and hunt through the staff directory until I find who I’m looking for. A few others I talk through IM
i appreciate the fact you contact sources in order to write well rounded articles.
Simon — It is possible to do some fact checking. Often it takes a little work.
It is quite obvious from the material that many (most?) bloggers do not bother.
One of the services you can provide is helping to identify this.
Jeff