Dan Gillmor has posted the Preface and Chapter One from Making the News, his forthcoming book about journalism in the Internet age. Gillmor is the best writer and thinker on this subject that I know, and his willingness to open source not just the book, but also his writing of it, is extraordinarily brave and visionary.
If Tom Paine showed the power of personal journalism, so did the muckrakers at the end of the 19th Century. They, more than most newspapers of the era, performed the public service function of journalism: exposing the anticompetitive predations of the robber barons and cruel conditions in workplaces, among a variety of outrages. Lincoln Steffens (“The Shame of the Cities”), Ida Tarbell (“History of the Standard Oil Company”), Jacob Ris (“How the Other Half Lives”) and Upton Sinclair (“The Jungle”) were among the daring journalists and novelists who shone daylight into some dark corners of society, and set a standard for the investigative journalists of the new century.
Personal journalism didn’t die with the muckrakers. Throughout the 20th Century, the world has been blessed with individuals who found ways to work outside the mainstream of the moment. One of my journalistic heroes is I.F. Stone, whose weekly, and later bi-weekly, newsletter was required reading for a generation of Washington insiders.