Even scandals now operate at Internet speed. Ten days ago, it looked as if an investigative reporter had uncovered a pornographic Web site operated by a federal judge. By last week, the case instead showed how easily privacy is breached online, how mainstream media botch a story, and how bloggers can redeem journalism by reporting facts.

It's not every day that a judge's wife uses a blog to defend her husband as not a pornographer. The Los Angeles Times scoop charged that the chief judge of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of...