Journalism that matters

Suddenly, everybody in the world is talking about what we've been talking about here for nearly four years, about how to save journalism in a topsy-turvey information age. Now, a lot of folks are saying that newsrooms should charge for their online comment (which probably won't work, but I'll tell you why some other time), or maybe they'll just wait everybody else out like the New York Times apparently is. The only thing I know is this, which is that for journalism to survive in America, we need to start producing more stories like this one:

For seven years, Martinez has worked as one of the city's most productive police informants, bringing down more than 200 drug and gun dealers.

But Martinez now says that some of the police jobs were tainted, rooted in lies and motivated by power, greed and money. He says he admitted fabricating evidence to the FBI, the police Internal Affairs Bureau and the Police Advisory Commission. Martinez's admission could reopen and potentially overturn hundreds of cases, legal experts say.

Martinez, 47, claims that he and Officer Jeffrey Cujdik, a narcotics cop, lied about evidence in at least two dozen cases to gain illegal entry into homes and make arrests, for which Martinez got paid. Martinez says he did it for money, to bring down drug dealers, and because he and Cujdik were tight.

For all the bloggers-vs-journalists baloney that's out there, I think most people agree on this. Stories like this one are incredibly worthwhile, and to produce them, it takes two full-time, paid journalists working for weeks or even months solely on this project. There's lots of ways you can try to pay for this: With philanthropic grants, or figuring out how to bring in revenue through the Web (and good luck with that). But if you don't figure out some way, then stories like this will disappear.