Diablog

NYU Professor Clay Shirky published an essay, "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable", that suggested that journalists needed to radically rethink the assumptions that have made market-supported newspapers possible. It was a bombshell, cited and commented on thousands of times. Today, Clay outlined the arguments of the essay at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School and filled a room with journalists, scholars and others interested in his views.

Clay’s focus is the future of "accountability journalism", the sort of serious investigative journalism that prevents corruption and keeps the powerful in check. He references the reporting done by the Boston Globe to expose abuse by Catholic priests under the leadership of Cardinal Law and his attempts to shuffle and cover for abusive priests.