All Blog Posts from Public Eye

Each week we invite someone from outside PE to weigh in with their thoughts about CBS News and the media at large. This week, we asked Justin Rood, a reporter/blogger for TPM Muckraker. He has reported for Government Executive magazine and the Congressional Quarterly as well as other publications. Here, Rood discusses the differences between reporting for traditional media and reporting for a blog. As always, the opinions expressed and factual assertions made in “Outside Voices” are those of the author, not ours, and we seek a wide variety of voices.

Starting out as a Washington beat reporter, I quickly learned the power of a cup of coffee. While most of my reporting was done at one end of a telephone line, I got much of my best stuff after convincing sources to sit down with me at a Starbucks.

It's not hard to understand why: Out of earshot from co-workers and bosses, sources tend to feel more free to say what they really think. They more readily develop trust when they interact with you in person.

Lunches and dinners with sources could yield even better results. As long as I didn't try to match my companions' scotch intake, I often came away with great details, anecdotes and insights of the way the nation's capital functions.

That was then, however.

For the past year, I've been reporting on Washington for a different sort of publication: TPMmuckraker.com, an investigative blog covering all manner of political scandals and corruption. And I've come to appreciate a very different kind of relationship with a very different group of sources, our readers.

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