Comments on: ProPublica Invites the Public's Help http://citmedia.org/blog/2009/04/09/propublica-invites-the-publics-help/ Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:49:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Jon Garfunkel http://citmedia.org/blog/2009/04/09/propublica-invites-the-publics-help/comment-page-1/#comment-3001 Jon Garfunkel Tue, 14 Apr 2009 05:22:11 +0000 http://citmedia.org/blog/2009/04/09/propublica-invites-the-publics-help/#comment-3001 re: "the site is doing what newspapers could have been doing years ago but haven’t bothered to do." In theory, yes, hundreds of readers *could* outperform a handful of professionals. In practice, this didn't happen here. The follow-up report, based on input from 179 readers, for the most part uncovered that a few top staffers had loans to pay off. The Times, meanwhile, through the reporting of Jeff Zeleny and Lousie Story, got the scoop on Summers's involvement with D.E. Shaw. re: “the site is doing what newspapers could have been doing years ago but haven’t bothered to do.”

In theory, yes, hundreds of readers *could* outperform a handful of professionals.

In practice, this didn’t happen here. The follow-up report, based on input from 179 readers, for the most part uncovered that a few top staffers had loans to pay off.

The Times, meanwhile, through the reporting of Jeff Zeleny and Lousie Story, got the scoop on Summers’s involvement with D.E. Shaw.

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