And that it’s not at all obvious that web-evangelists (again, what it means in practice) should be considered a fount of wisdom, apart from their domain of marketing web-evangelism.

Now, Adrian’s a talented guy (we’ve met; had dinner together). But I can’t imagine that what he’s doing is so foreign to Abramson, Baron et al. Infographics is a skills and an art, but it’s pretty accessible. Did you spend hours (like I did) playing with the NYT interactive graphics for election 2006. That’s the work of Shan Carter and Amanda Cox. Ms. Cox keeps a low web profile, but from googling Shan Carter, it appears like you may have overlapped for a year or so at the Merc.

And, obviously, Adrian’s not fit for a board. He’s a doer. He has his own project.

Seth/Jon — no worries, just chuckes, that’s life…

I’m not sure what you mean about that long-ago conference. It was full of traditional media folks and a few nontraditional folks, and way too much of the discussion was about whether bloggers could do journalism, and vice versa. I thought we were past that now.

Dan, you might recall a certain conference a while back on, I think it was, Flogging, Journalschism, and Credulity (something like that …). And the vocal commentary that it seemed to exclude anyone who had any practical experience (and the ironies afterwards, but that’s subtle).

Keeping that in mind, I’m actually skeptical that hiring an A-lister (because that what this means in practice) would be such a smart idea. Further, a more cynical take would be that “native” are for exploiting.

Dan, I studied programming in high school and have been online in one way or another since the 1970s. But I agree, I’m not fully native to this. If this was my organization I’d bring aboard someone like Adrian Holovaty, not because he’s a great investigative journalist (he wouldn’t claim to be) he grasps the power of data in a profound way.

Seth, big oops, and thanks for the copy edit. (Everyone needs an editor…)

These folks are indeed giants in the field of journalism. But ProPublica needs giants as well in field of bringing journalism — practice and business — into the digital world. For all that the Times and Globe have done (and they’re pretty good; I’m defending the Times’ blogging on a private mail list at the moment), they aren’t going fast enough in my view.

Mark Cuban’s venture has semi-flopped, sure. So what? It was an experiment. We need a thousand more like it.

Speak about stunning oversights. (ok, I concede: “Let he who has not flubbed it his own copy-editing cast it the first stone…”)

On a serious note, Dan G. What does it mean to have a serious understanding of the web? Start with the NYT, it still has one of the leading websites, it practices every corner of online/interactive/multimedia journalism. In light of Marc Andreesson’s protests, just what are they doing so wrong besides holding onto the Globe and other loss-eating publications? And may I echo Dan K., the Globe’s balance sheet aside, they’re no slouches either.

Onto the list. If circumstances were different, I could have spent the last four years fully trying to be an independent investigative journalist. I’ve merely dabbled in this stuff, and I’ve still been able to meet just about all of the major online journalism impresarios and had extended conversations with them (present company included). On the other hand, I’ve been lucky to merely shake the hands of Abramson, Baron, Caro. These individuals are giants in the field, and any budding investigative journalist should be lucky to have their advice.

Ok, there’s one superblogger web know-it-all I haven’t met, who didn’t make this board. Then again, Mark Cuban’s already funded his own investigative effort– and endured much criticism for it. But it’s not like ShareSleuth has produced a pile of journalism– three investigations in 18 months. And it’s not like Chris Carey’s articles actually benefit from anything webby. Cuban the editor is very strict, according to the Wired profile. (which I’m not linking to since your spam filter will moderate me for it.)

Actually, I think this is far darker than that. If you follow the money (i.e. the funders), I think you’ll find that this is an extension of the Clinton operation, like Media Matters and Moveon.org. This will be a vigilante political operation hiding behind the credibility of the respected image of investigative journalism and the respected name of mainstream journalists and the center-left Beltway establishment. Most don’t even know they are being used, in my opinion. Watch for anti-McCain and anti-Republican hit pieces in the 60 days before the election.

Steve Boriss, (TheFutureOfNews.com)