Hold the Pepperoni
Can blogs be used effectively to distribute serious investigative reporting? David E. Kaplan of U.S. News & World Report is giving it a shot with his Bad Guys blog. This month, for instance, he has been tracking the mob's lingering strength in the U.S. One of his posts, "Ba-Da-Bing: Return of the Mafia's Pizza Connection," tells us how mobsters have reportedly invested in pizzerias, supermarkets and construction firms to be used as fronts to help funnel South American cocaine through New York and on to Europe. Kaplan's blog is certainly different than the "60 Minutes" and long-form newspaper stories we're used to turning to for investigative work. But I don't see any reason why it can't be just as good.