Here’s an interesting story about the news and journalism. It has a few intertwining threads. It needs a bit of set up, too, so bear with me. Thank you to my friend Adam Pagnucco for doing the heavy lifting here.

Here’s how Adam puts a recent situation with DC’s Metro system in his indispensable Maryland Politics Watch:

On July 30, an anonymous Metro bus rider told an anonymous blog that he had witnessed a WMATA bus operator talking on a cell phone while driving. The rider stated:

I caught my bus driver using her cellphone while driving Tuesday. I was riding the 63 from Takoma as I do every morning now that commuting on the Red Line is a mess. When we got to the stop just outside of the Petworth Metro station, our driver got out of the bus and started talking on her cell phone. One minute goes by, 2 minutes, 3 minutes … and she’s still talking on her phone. Passengers start getting very angry. One, in particular, steps outside and yells at the driver to get moving. Yet another minute goes by before the driver bothers to get back on the bus. And she’s still talking on the phone. If I were smarter (and more awake), I would have caught this moment on video, but she sat down and pulled out into traffic with phone to ear, and drove several hundred feet before ending her call. I got a crappy picture with my cell phone. It was the best I could get from my vantage point. If you zoom in on the driver, you can see her holding up a phone to her ear with one hand and pulling out into traffic with the other.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post ran a story the next day that recounted the same basic (alleged) facts.

When confronted with the story, Metro’s chief executive, Jack Catoe, told the Post, “We will determine who this operator is . . . the action for speaking on your phone or texting on your phone is termination.”

But, according to Pagnucco:

Catoe spoke too soon. A source with knowledge of WMATA’s investigation related the following account:

“The actual story was that a number of passengers reported that the destination sign on the bus was not working and asked her where she was going.

“The operator stepped off the bus and examined the sign and determined that it was not working correctly. She then proceeded to the rear of the bus to “re-boot” the sign so that it would re-set. This did not correct the problem. When she went to board the bus again, she tripped on the steps of the bus and suffered minor injuries to her arm and leg.

“She attempted to contact central control via the phone system installed by Metro (a fixed radio-phone system installed on the bus). Central control did not respond. The operator then stepped off the bus to call central control with her cell phone. She was able to contact central and report both her injury and the need to schedule a “change-off” where a bus with a working sign could replace her bus en route.

“While still speaking to central control outside the bus, passengers became agitated about her not leaving the terminal on time and began “berating” her. According to the operator, she boarded the bus, sat in the driver’s seat and completed the call to central control before actually moving the vehicle.

“A witness on the bus corroborates her story. . . .”

What’s interesting here is not the he-said, she-said between the two blogs. What’s interesting, instead, is the relationship between the Washington Post and Maryland Politics Watch (the blog Adam writes for).

The Independent Journalist As Craftsman

At a recent conference with a number of journalists, I heard a number of complaints about “these bloggers” who have “no standards” when it comes to Journalism. “They can just write anything,” people complained, miffed.

But here we have a blog taking a print newspaper to task for what seems like a very reasonable — and fundamentally journalistic — transgression: not following up to dig deeper on a story.

(I’m not saying that Adam’s right, and it is important to note that his post was not focused on the Post. But he is still raising the issue.)

Yesterday’s post touched on the difference between Journalism and News. Journalism, the kind practiced by large newspapers, sees itself as the gold standard of news delivery. And there is a decent argument that it takes a large institution to continue to foster such standards.

However, there’s another model that could work, too: Journalist as craftsman. That’s what Adam is. He is one lone person, toiling away at his craft (on his off hours, mind you, this is not his “job”) for the love of it. And, by devoting himself to his craft, he can regularly outperform larger news institutions.

This is the competitive advantage that the craftsman has over the factory. Today’s tools make it possible for some Journalists to be craftsmen instead of laborers.

I’m not saying this is an overall business model — I’m saying it is a threat to large Journalism. It is possible that there are so many Journalist-craftsmen that people can get the Journalism they want and further erode the mass Journalism practiced at institutions such as newspapers. Maybe not yet . . . but it is possible.