[The staff at our sister publication, Nieman Reports, is putting the finishing touches on its Spring 2009 issue. Its theme is one dear to our hearts: "Voyages of Discovery Into New Media." The issue features a lot of great pieces by some of the people leading the way in online journalism — Joel Kramer of MinnPost, Andrew Donohue and Scott Lewis of Voice of San Diego, Brian Storm of MediaStorm, and more. (Not to mention a piece by Jay Hamilton, seen here recently in our last Book Club.)

The issue should be up on the Nieman Reports web site sometime soon. But in the meantime, here's a preview of one of the pieces, by Margaret Wolf Freivogel, editor of the nonprofit startup St. Louis Beacon. —Ed.]

The spotlight often focuses, justifiably, on the threats that downsized newsrooms pose to investigative reporting — the kind of muckraking that should (but didn’t) spot a governor dickering over the value of a U.S. Senate seat. But investigative reporting has a less celebrated cousin in the family of watchdog journalism — that is hard-hitting analysis. It is equally important and equally threatened by the economic earthquake rattling journalism.

Investigative reporting exposes corruption. Watchdog analysis exposes sloppy thinking by raising uncomfortable questions about public policy and political issues. Both are essential for keeping public discussion real and public officials honest.

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