Via PBS, a provocative look that takes the contrarian view -- that good journalism is far from being on life support. Hey, I support the thesis! Mostly... Mark Glaser notes the evolution of journalism is STILL producing good investigative pieces:
It took Hurricane Katrina to flood the town of New Orleans and send most of the Times-Picayune newspaper staff packing before that newsroom realized that its website could help produce Pulitzer-worthy work 
. In that case, the newspaper couldn’t physically print copies of the newspaper, so the website became the newspaper, and started a ground-breaking online forum that helped guide emergency workers to stranded residents. Later, the work at the paper’s website and blogs made up part of the entries that won the paper two Pulitzer Prizes .
Small-staffed websites such as The Smoking Gun and TMZ.com have dug up dirt on public figures using that old shoe leather investigative work that requires digging through public records.
Liberal blog communities have sprung up to gang-tackle investigative work, like the folks at Daily Kos or TalkingPointsMemo and its TPMmuckraker pro-am site, with professional journalists working with amateur tipsters. And the conservative side of the blogosphere, led by Power Line and Free Republic , helped investigate questionable documents tied to a “60 Minutes II” report that led to Dan Rather’s departure.
I'll give him the first one -- the second two make me just flat our nervous -- see my post from last night about lack of transparency in political blogs. We don't need more opinion and one-way shouting, we need more facts and balance. Blogs tilt hard to opinion and perception -- we need real voices to provide balance.