Radical Transparency is the Latest Hot Trend in Online Journalism

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The latest hot trend in online journalism is transparency in the editing process. For example, there’s this from the New Republic:

The secret is that this is from my RSS feed. You won’t see it if you click the link and go directly to the TNR site. Then there’s this from Vox:

This one, however, turned out not to be a secret RSS bug. Vox just posted the wrong version on their site, and then removed it a few minutes later. Spoilsports. Personally, though, I applaud this trend. I think everyone should publish both initial drafts and final edits, along with all editor queries. Or, maybe some clever anarchist should hack into the New York Times content management system and download a few years’ worth of initial drafts and editor comments. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

NOTE: Do not target me. Someone else, please. Besides, no one edits my blog posts, so there are no fun editor queries. All the mistakes, idiotic opinions, and transparently anti-Bernie/anti-Hillary propaganda is my fault alone.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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