This kind of reporting is becoming an endangered species.
It requires a lot of man-hours, and isn't as profitable as the minimal effort required to regurgitate whatever the latest sensational scandal is.
It requires a lot of man-hours, and isn't as profitable as the minimal effort required to regurgitate whatever the latest sensational scandal is.
As far as I can tell, there is an avalanche (that’s a reference) of excellent, deeply reported stories, making good use of technology, on important subjects both titilating and not.
Just go through the other award winners, or the webby award nominees in the relevant categories.
I'm certainly not perfect, but I'm increasingly good at ignoring click-bait links.
EDIT: fixed a critical typo
I knew someone who worked for a company that monitored newswires and other media all day watching for breaking stories. They then rewrote them in an SEO or viral friendly way, propagated them through social media using bots or an influencer network. By being the first to publish something that ranked on news aggregators, they could pull in views and get ad money.
If the story was from a subscription newswire I guess this is okay. If you are writing a story reporting someone else reported a story you are kinda stealing revenue from the people who did the hunting.
But whoever does that will win, and writing a story that will spread then getting it to the aggregators is a skill.
I understand why you feel that way. It's clearly a broadside, aimed squarely at where journalism comes from. Where else can that be but professional journalists?
Yet, is it perhaps possible that the comment to which you have taken exception might also be understood by some to be one in the direction of the business models that suppport, fund, and direct professional journalists?