I.F. Stone's lessons for Internet journalism

COMMENTARY | July 09, 2007

Bloggers are taking up where the great rebel journalist left off, but if the news industry is to thrive on the Internet, reporters and editors shouldn't be far behind. Dan Froomkin writes that news organizations would do better online by replacing their bored monotone with a passionate adherence to traditional journalistic values.

By Dan Froomkin
froomkin@niemanwatchdog.org

The best blogger ever died in 1989 at the age of 81.

That's the conclusion I reached reading Myra MacPherson's wonderful biography of the great rebel journalist, I.F. Stone. The title of her book, "All Governments Lie!," is both a fitting summary of Stone's core philosophy and the organizing principle of many of the finest political bloggers on the Internet.

Although Stone worked for decades vigorously tweaking authority as a daily journalist, editorial writer and essayist, it was in 1953 that he created the perfect outlet for his extraordinary mind, starting I.F. Stone's Weekly, easily the scrappiest and most influential four-page newsletter ever sent through the U.S. mail. When Stone shut it down in 1971, the Weekly had 70,000 subscribers.