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stories about: "the smoking gun"
News You Could Do Without

News You Could Do Without

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
griefers, investigative reporting, pranknet

Companies:
the smoking gun



But Who Will Do Investigative Reporting Without Newspapers?

from the someone-will-find-a-way... dept

Pat was the first of a few of you to send in this amazing investigative report done by the folks at The Smoking Gun, outing a bunch of "griefers" who go by the name Pranknet and who have caused a tremendous amount of trouble and damage throughout the US with their phone-based pranks. The story is fascinating for a variety of reasons, and well worth reading, but it (once again) highlights the fact that detailed deep investigative reporting isn't something that only newspapers can do. The reporters from TSG went well-beyond your typical investigative report as well. Rather than just outing the "leader" of the group, they tracked down numerous accomplices (many of whom insisted they couldn't be found) and outed them all. Apparently police and the FBI had been trying to track down members of this group for a while, but some good old investigative reporting -- from a website -- beat them to it.

20 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
News You Could Do Without

News You Could Do Without

by Mike Masnick


Filed Under:
investigative journalism, journalism, newspapers

Companies:
la times, the smoking gun



Wait, Weren't Big Newspapers Needed For Credibility?

from the so-much-for-that-plan dept

Over the last few years, it's been amusing to watch defenders of mainstream journalism trash online journalism by claiming that traditional journalists can do real investigative journalism, whereas online-only sources are too easily suckered into fake stories. In fact, one of the loudest complaints about the demise of newspapers is that no one will do "investigative" reports any more. There's no doubt that newer journalism properties get stories wrong at times, but traditional journalists seem just as likely to screw up as well. Witness the big news about the LA Times getting totally suckered into believing a completely made up story concerning Tupac Shakur's murder. Who broke the LA Times mistake? The online site, TheSmokingGun.com. This isn't to say that new media is any better than traditional media -- but it does highlight that for all the supposed "authority" of traditional journalists and their lofty standards, there's a pretty long track record of stunning mistakes and poorly fact-checked stories made by them.

20 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 
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