…if you are the single newspaper in San Francisco or Kansas City or St. Louis, you are just highly constrained about how rigorous you can be in the accuracy of your reporting. Because the whole model is: You are appealing to everybody. Because the whole model is: You are appealing to everybody. … That's why the existence of an independent media sector is so important.

Talking Points Memo is one of the more notable successes in independent journalism and using blogs as a format for journalism. It has broken at least a couple of stories that got picked up by the mainstream press: The Duke Cunningham bribery scandal, and the U.S. Attorneys firing scandal. It's grown from being a one-man shop in 2000 to a staff of ten today. Josh Marshall talks about how it came to be.
posted by adamrice on Oct 7, 2008 - 51 comments

Beer Frame and Dishwasher and Murder Can Be Fun. My top 3 Zines of all time (here's a list of more). There was a used record/comics store near where I worked. They had lots of Zines and I would frequent them just to see if new issues were in. Weeks of waiting were sometimes rewarded with a new issue. Almost always worth the wait. Anyone have a favorite? Any good Zines around anymore? [more inside]
posted by e40 on Nov 30, 2004 - 37 comments

Media for Democracy -- a non-partisan citizens' initiative to monitor mainstream news coverage of the 2004 elections and advocate fair, democratic and issue-oriented standards of reporting. The project links voters with more than 100 independent media reform groups in a targeted campaign to prevent the types of media mistakes -- such as early, erroneous and politically biased projections -- that plagued the 2000 election. Brought to you by Mediachannel.org, who recently called primary coverage "Electotainment."
posted by amberglow on Jan 30, 2004 - 2 comments