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At Blog Maverick, Mark Cuban has published the emails between him and New York Times reporter Andrew Sorkin, and linked to the article based on the exchange that was published in the Sunday Times. Cuban refuses to be interviewed, except by email because he says he was mis-represented in the media. This practice marks a sea change in journalism.
Making Journalism Transparent
“… rather than me guessing how they got from interview to headline and article, I will just let the interview speak for itself.,” Cuban writes.
It is useful and fair to have the source material online, but I believe that the skill in journalism is encapsulating the central ideas of the story while maintaining the original meaning. Getting the gist of a two hour interview into 300 words requires extraordinary writing ability.
No writer is 100% objective. That’s not possible. Journalists need to strive to be fair and balanced. Regurgitating an entire conversation verbatum is almost always a crashing bore. And keeping the writer’s opinions, experience and expertise out of a story leads to bland copy.
Improving Credibility
Interestingly, the publication of the raw material opens the story to different interpretations by bloggers and other journalists. In the long term, that will add to the credibility of reporting in all its forms.