Reporting on the death of journalism

    Nice tip from former Journal Sentinel critic Damien Jaques, who since taking the company's buyout offer this past week apparently has time to read other newspapers, who guided me to a story on the death of journalism from the Washington Post. Note, I didn't say the death of newspapers, but the death of journalism.

     The story, by Ian Shapira, goes through what all he had to do to produce a story, which then was basically lifted from the Post website by Gawker.com with little or no work involved. 

    What's important isn't just that a website basically cherrypicked a newspaper story, but Shapira's going through all the steps he took to produce the original 1,500-word story. And, frankly, this is journalism that isn't likely to be duplicated by websites. Think about it a minute. How often do you see a story on a website that's its own reporting and not just picking up facts from someone else's reporting.  Also, Shapira is referencingGawker.com, one of the larger national sites. 

     As a perceptive former colleague suggested this morning while talking about the more than 30 Journal Sentinel writers, editors and photographers to leave, journalism is hurt by this -- especially local journalism. For those who hate their local paper, where are they going to get local news if it's gone? The national papers will survive. But who's going to keep an eye on the county executive or your alderman or your governor without a local paper?