best enterprise
Jeff Jarvis also has a good point about Jay Rosen’s NYT vs. WP critique: Jay never says what he thinks makes a paper great. And he doesn’t really explain what he thinks is so stupendous about the Post — except that they have an innovative website. Umm, as a writer to that I’d say: big whoop. (Jay, if you want to say the Post has a better website, you might have a point).
One obvious hallmark of a great paper, in my mind at least, is investigative reporting. “Enterprise,” in the jargon. Off the top of my head I can think of four great NYT enterprise stories or series from the past 12 months: Walt Bogdanich’s “Death on the Tracks” series on railroad safety, the “Class Matters” series, Tim Golden’s amazing and disturbing story on the beating deaths of two detainees in Afghanistan, and now Adam Liptak’s “No Way Out” series on prisoners serving life terms.
With all respect to the Post, which is certainly a great paper … but what have they done, in the last 12 months, that’s remotely comparable? That’s an honest question: I don’t read the Post every day. Maybe I’ve missed some great journalism on their part. But I’d like to think if they had published some must-read investigative report, I would have read it.
October 6th, 2005 at 00:23:46 +0000
On an unrelated note, damn you and your Red Sox. As I recall it, the White Sox haven’t won a postseason series since ’59.
(I looked it up, it was 1917)
October 6th, 2005 at 13:01:47 +0000
hey id like to add the latimes’ series on king drew hospital. ok, so that’s more investigative. but an excellent series no less. wpost has definitely become a regional, almost local, paper.
October 9th, 2005 at 10:06:16 +0000
I ended up disagreeing with you, Derek, and agreeing with Jay and I explained why in this media analysis piece at Blog Critics.