If newspapers are in terminal decline who is going to pick up the mantle of accountability journalism?
So asks NYU professor Clay Shirky, one of the most insightful digital media thinkers around.
The fourth estate is a traditional bulwark against the excesses of the commercial and political classes. Without it – or rather, without much of it – will come “casual, endemic, civic corruption”.
In my latest column for Journalism.co.uk, I discuss what might eventually replace the newspaper as a check against corruption and highlight some of the examples of accountability journalism already out there on the net.
If you haven’t already come across Propublica, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Spot.us, and Help Me Investigate among others, you soon will.
Read: Where now for accountability journalism?
(And, if you really haven’t got anything better to do, you can read all 10 of my Journalism.co.uk columns here.)
(Picture credit: rogue3w)
Jon Bernstein 