In 1999, the Dallas Observer wrote a fantastic exposé of the goings on at Ion Storm. The 7500 word piece depicted a company in the process of total collapse. The story swept through the gaming world because 1) it was a fascinating glimpse into the slow death of the high profile developer of a hotly anticipated game and 2) it was (and still is) inconceivable that anything like it would ever originate in the specialist press.

Because, it's not really the specialist press. It's the enthusiast press.

How can you tell if something's the enthusiast press? Here's a starting point: Regardless of the internals, the question of whether or not there is a clear separation of church and state between editorial and advertising is academic, because a good chunk of editorial consists of breathless previews of upcoming products, services, or events.

PC Gamer, Gamespot, and IGN are enthusiast gaming press. US and People are enthusiast celebrity culture press. Better Homes and Gardens is enthusiast home and garden press. As an outsider looking in, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of non-enthusiast tech press.

Gizmodo's biggest scoop was announcing some of the specs of an Apple product a little sooner than Apple's marketing machine wanted. TechCrunch's latest big scoop was announcing information about the new Amazon tablet when the marketing machine wanted them to. Altering a marketing timetable is not a big triumph of journalism. As Alexis points out, these are fundamentally benign scoops.

I enthusiastically welcome counter-examples. The iPhone point aside, Gizmodo's investigative coverage has notched up and publications like Ars Technica can do brilliant enterprise reporting. But across the board, including here at The Atlantic Tech, the hard-hitting pieces are few and far-between.

The question of Arrington & TechCrunch's corruption (or cutting-edge future-of-journalism total-lack-of-corruption) misses the forest for the trees. It's soap opera sideshow that's obviously engaging, but it isn't of much consequence (like a soap opera, we've seen the same basic storyline - starring the same people - before).

There is a higher order of critique to be made. That critique is of a whole segment of journalism that alternates between being hype-man and watchdog for an industry. The structure of constant posting inhibits - if not outright prevents - the watchdog part from going beyond product reviews. Hype, on the other hand, is in plenty of supply and keeps the pageviews flowing. The way these outlets are set up, there isn't much possibility of a big triumph of journalism.

Think about the presumption on display when Jobs dressed down the MobileMe team. "Mossberg, our friend, is no longer writing good things about us." I've seen the story posted dozens of times in tales of the legendary Steve Jobs. I've never seen it give anyone pause.