The nation's big journalism schools are pooling resources to create new investigative journalism structures that they can aspire to send their students to. Why? Because the current lights of reporting are being tarnished and dimmed daily, and as a result, there's less and less for wannabe reporters to shoot for. The article's a little unclear on exactly what's going to happen -- the first project, it seems, is a 9/11 documentary with ABC News, hardly cutting edge stuff -- but the folks involved are smart and there's a bit of money backing it, so I'm glad to see the effort.
More to the point, I'm glad to see the press waking from its slumber. As EJ Dionne wrote today, we're not seeing an uptick in incidents of journalistic dishonesty, but the fruition of a well-planned and impressively executed conservative strategy of tarring top outlets with small errors in order to defang them for the future. That's got to stop, and it'll only do so when the press decides to start punching back and stop cowering before the right's blows. This isn't about them, it's about neutering them. The sooner that's understood, the better off we'll all be. And that goes, in the long-run, for the conservatives too. Weakening the institutions that threaten power only looks good when you're on top. One day they'll be weak again, and they'll find they're quite thankful for a strong press and a usable filibuster.
