Like my Atlantic colleagues, here, here, and here, I want to note what Marc Ambinder has done on our site and in the magazine, on the occasion of his moving to another part of the building to begin work for our sister publication, National Journal.
The concept of a "reported blog" (as opposed to a pure "Hey, I think the people at some other site are crazy!" personal-bloviating blog) no longer seems an oxymoron; and Marc Ambinder shares at least some part of the credit for showing that the fact-gathering enterprise that is at the heart of "normal" journalism was just as important in online dispatches. His office at the Watergate building is right next to mine. On the occasions when we were both there at the same time -- not that often, but frequently enough to remember -- I would hear him working the phones for hours on end, to confirm, tease out, expand on, and in all other ways report information he intended to use on our site. He sounded like an old-style police reporter, right down the police-scanner radio he had on his desk -- and I mean that in the most complimentary way. Good luck to him at NJ. And I hope he leaves the police scanner -- I would miss it, and will miss him.
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The concept of a "reported blog" (as opposed to a pure "Hey, I think the people at some other site are crazy!" personal-bloviating blog) no longer seems an oxymoron; and Marc Ambinder shares at least some part of the credit for showing that the fact-gathering enterprise that is at the heart of "normal" journalism was just as important in online dispatches. His office at the Watergate building is right next to mine. On the occasions when we were both there at the same time -- not that often, but frequently enough to remember -- I would hear him working the phones for hours on end, to confirm, tease out, expand on, and in all other ways report information he intended to use on our site. He sounded like an old-style police reporter, right down the police-scanner radio he had on his desk -- and I mean that in the most complimentary way. Good luck to him at NJ. And I hope he leaves the police scanner -- I would miss it, and will miss him.
