The blogosphere as a source for news?

Oh, the perils and frustrations of the blogosphere. Well, it isn’t a perilous place, exactly, but it can be pretty darn frustrating.


Thanks to the glories of the Internet, you can search for a news story on any given topic these days and you’re likely to turn up something in the neighborhood of 4,325,974,901 items. Unless it's a big story, in which case you'll have many more options.

Trouble is, many of these “stories” are nothing more than chatty blog posts written by people who may or may not know what they're talking about, or dubious articles from pseudo “news” sites you’ve never heard of. So you have to wade through a cartload of chaff to find a kernel of wheat: a thorough, reliable and well-written news story that, in the grand but fading tradition of solid journalism, puts the most important stuff up top and answers all of the basic questions - who, what, where, when and - if you’re lucky - why.

Here's an example. After it was announced this week that novelist Howard Jacobson had won Britain’s most prestigious literary prize, I wanted to find out who the other finalists were. Running a Google search for Man Booker Prize turned up 639 “news articles." But some focused only on Jacobson. Others teasingly worked their way through the short-listed authors in a chatty, meandering "we'll get to it when we get to it" style that tested my patience.

Eventually, I found a Los Angeles Times story that told me everything I needed to know in the first three paragraphs, as follows: 

In a surprise win, Howard Jacobson was awarded the 2010 Man Booker Prize on Tuesday night in a ceremony in London for his novel "The Finkler Question." Jacobson beat out Tom McCarthy, whose novel "C" had been a favorite among British oddsmakers, and four other books for the honor.

"I am speechless," Jacobson, 68, said as he took the stage, joking, "Fortunately, I prepared one earlier." Jacobson, a native of England who has written 15 books and has a weekly column in the British newspaper the Independent, has twice been long-listed for the Man Booker — in 2002 and 2006 — but this was the first year he made it to the short list.

The Man Booker, the most prestigious award in British publishing, comes with an award of 50,000 pounds or about $79,000; it all but guarantees bestseller status in the United Kingdom. Others in the running for the award were two-time winner Peter Carey for "Parrot & Olivier in America," Andrea Levy for "The Long Song," Damon Galgut for "In a Strange Room" and Emma Donoghue for "Room."

Ah, to finally stumble upon an actual news story written by an actual journalist who has an actual understanding of how to report actual news. It’s heartwarming, actually.