In 1996, large dailies in North Carolina combined on polling and the common publication of 12 issues stories. The Washington Post s Jonathan Yardley attacked this cooperation as a cabal. Editors should nurture fierce competition in a time of media concentration, not surrender it. Public journalism is no substitute for investigative reporting, which risks irritating powerful interests in a community. Public journalism seldom offends and seldom brings to light the outrageous things that go on in a community.
Readers expect newspapers to expose corruption.
If a newspaper seeks to offend no one, it will be dismissed as irrelevant. The best kind of journalism begins with the reporter who digs up stuff that will never appear in a public opinion poll and ends with an editorial page raising hell about reform.