You can certainly make the argument that newspapers were never that good at these things to begin with, or that this type of coverage is mostly gone, but the fact remains that as a side-effect of paid content you end up with somebody covering local stories -- and local stories usually means crime. Having one person becoming an in-house expert on how to gather crime information, collecting informants, knowing how to work the paperwork, making friends with people in the court system, having a large organization with lawyers backing them up -- I don't see that emerging just from technology.
That's no reason to fear the future. We'll figure it out, I'm sure. But it's (to me) a little Pollyannish to assume that because the new media formats are easier to use and disseminate information rapidly, it's all somehow automatically better than older media. Stuff changes, and as you point, out we've got some things to work out.
That's no reason to fear the future. We'll figure it out, I'm sure. But it's (to me) a little Pollyannish to assume that because the new media formats are easier to use and disseminate information rapidly, it's all somehow automatically better than older media. Stuff changes, and as you point, out we've got some things to work out.