The Guardian's Hamish Mackintosh interviews rabblerousing investigative reporter Sy Hersh about the impact of technology on journalism. A few excerpts:
So Dan Gillmor's idea that "we are the media" isn't quite the case yet? The net does one thing great for people like me: it used to be that if I wrote a good hard story for the New Yorker magazine and the New York Times didn't pick it up then we all felt bad. Now the internet is so vibrant that everything's on it on blogs, logs or websites. The blogs are still very undisciplined though and they can be very vicious.
Has the net made it harder to cover up stories such as Abu Ghraib? ... The big impact of the net is that there's an astonishing amount of information to be accessed by people who know their way. For me, the net is all about information flow, and in the long run it's going to mean better information.
How important is an online presence to the New Yorker? I don't know for sure but I think it's a big deal for them. I know when I have a good story going they get about half a million hits a day. ...
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