Sizing up newspapers' watchdog reporting

I posted a blog last week at the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy that got a fair amount of notice -- mainly courtesy of Mr. Romenesko. He gave it the headline: Newspaper investigative reporting can be easily replaced? Don't believe it! I'd just finished judging McClatchy's in-house newspaper contest, and was struck by how deep and wide is the watchdog reporting that continues in newspapers. Which in turn prompted me to write that a very big void would be created if newspapers couldn't do this anymore.

I'm not a newspaper supremacist. I think there's a very decent chance that watchdog reporting will have a new and, quite possibly, richer life on the Web. But I also think new-media experts are underestimating how much watchdog reporting exists now in newspapers. It's not just I-team, five-part investigation stuff. And it's not just happening at the New York Times.