I get asked a lot about the relationship between old media and new media, on the editorial and publishing side. And my usual line is that I think the relationship is much more symbiotic and convergent than people often realize. But when folks ask what scrappy little outfits like TPM would do if the big papers with their cadres of reporters went under, I have to wonder, what would big papers like the Washington Post do if TPM went under and they didn't have our exclusives to steal and run as their own stories on A2 on the following day?

For today's example see Kate Klonick's Thursday exclusive at TPMMuckraker about the US Commission on Civil Rights hiring Bush administration minority voting suppression expert Hans von Spakovsky and the Post's citation/credit-free retread in today's paper.