Dan Gillmor argues that the reporting of advocacy organizations is becoming more and more like real journalism:
Yes, BuzzFeed, Vox, and ESPN’s new FiveThirtyEight, and a host of other large and small new media operations are extending the news ecosystem. But so are Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Cato Institute, and a host of other organizations that do serious reporting about some of the key issues of our time. The latter are doing advocacy journalism—coverage with a clearly stated worldview—and often leading the way for traditional journalists.
In my most recent book I called them “almost-journalists,” because I believe that advocates’ media work doesn’t always take note of opposing alternative viewpoints and facts. At this point, I’m ready to drop the “almost” part of the expression. I’m not saying they’re doing journalism of the type that rose to prominence in American newspapers in the second half of the 20th century—the by-the-numbers, “objective” coverage that still can serve a valuable purpose. Rather, they’re going deeper than anyone else on topics that they care about that are vital for the public to understand, but which traditional journalists have either ignored or treated shallowly. Then they’re telling us what they’ve learned, using the tools and techniques of 21st-century media.
The Dish 