1) Since when must one post links on facebook or Twitter to read? The best-read, most interesting folks I know are the ones who aren’t celebrating their cleverness and coolness on f & T but actually reading (and playing guitar and taking hikes and volunteering at soup kitchens) not dinking on their PCs all day. And I find that a good way to learn what people read is to ask them. Old-fashioned, I know, but it works surprisingly well. It’s harder to BS your way through conversation than through a Tweet or facebook posting.

2) Linking is great, and the MSM should do it more. But you can say that in the length of a Tweet. It doesn’t, or shouldn’t, take 2,500 words. If Twitter has taught us anything, isn’t it that?

I’m totally with you on links. And also on everyone reading and synthesizing more. But the cost structure of old media means I often see very young, very green “journalists” trying to cover a complicated, inscrutable, opaque industry like accounting/auditing whenever a story breaks that absolutely requires it. And they have to suck everything they can out of me in twenty minutes on the phone. I feel bad for them and for the public. Can a blog like mine substitute for well funded, institutional media? As hard as I try, it can’t. I lack the resources to do justice to so many of the stories I’d like to do. I also lack the legal backing. That any independent bloggers in the financial realm – not institutional ones like you – can accomplish anything is a quite a miracle.

btw: what did you think of Lemann’s recent essay on New Orleans?

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives  /2010/sep/30/charm-city-usa/

And what’s your view of Mr. & Mrs. Krugman’s explanation of the financial crisis?

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives  /2010/sep/30/slump-goes-why/

By media standards, I’m not impressed by that salary. But if you really meant “we live in a world where EVEN AN IDIOT LIKE Dennis Kneale has reportedly been pulling down $500,000 a year,” you have made a very good, but different point.

I suspect that Felix is in the same boat. The best possible thing he can do is to place his publisher in the best position to monetize his editorial work. He likely doesn’t have any input as to how his publisher does that, however.

So there is a business model question here – only blogosphere doesn’t work in some areas, since our readers don’t pay for subscribers. Links are part of the answer, but impressions do not seem to pay for good investigative journalism (yet?)

The underlying trouble is that journalists and judges share an occupational risk: both are called upon to understand and make judgments upon complicated stories from many corners of society. Yet neither is properly called to account for mistakes in understanding these stories. With no corrective feedback, the temptation is irresistible to believe that one has learned everything about everything. But the reality is that the typical journalist doesn’t know anything about anything, aside from his own profession.

“That kind of view says to me that most senior journalists still don’t appreciate the real value being added by the blogosphere — and nor do they appreciate just how much original reporting is done by blogs and other online outlets these days. You can’t become popular just by linking and aggregating, any more: you need good original content.”

Many journalist (and quasi-blogger-journalist hybrid) friends of mine will undoubtedly be less-than-thrilled with me for saying this (ad nauseum), but while I think that point is absolutely true, I don’t think you’ve gone far enough.

The big journalism (or “journalism,” since I wouldn’t insult the profession by calling most of the drivel in most papers/websites real Journalism) outlets are so far out of it, still, its unbelievable. Its 2010! Even giving such outlets the benefit of the doubt that the blogosphere didn’t explode until say 2006, there’s no excuse to still be so far behind the curve. Not pride. Not hubris. No.excuse.

Step 1 is admitting you have a problem (I’m told), and the Old Guard (and to a lesser extent) of leaders at these media outlets need to man up already and get with the program. As you say, every outlet in the country doesn’t need to send a reporter to every damn event. Syndicate AP/whatever and focus on core competencies/areas with comparative advantage/etc. Hell, start staffing people to curate instead of re-hash commoditized information and syndicate the best of what’s out there, whether from a blog or traditional media outlet or wire service.