James Fallows, who somehow finds time to write, speak, blog, and otherwise be a very thoughtful guy (and who thus shames me into my first blog post in a while), has a good post up looking at some examples of exemplary journalism/reporting. He calls out four stories in particular:
– “Bail Burden” special on NPR
– “The Listener,” by the Atlantic
– A news-analysis piece by Alec MacGillis in the Washington Post
– “System Failure,” by Christopher Hayes in the Nation
If ever there was an argument that long form, thoughtful writing is needed more than ever, this is it, and it really serves as a reminder that we equally need quick twitch what’s happening twitter/fb/yammer reports as well as longer, sometimes controversial (in a deep way) pieces that say what does it mean.