The Chicago Sports Review interviews KC Johnson, whose work as a blogger covering the Duke rape hysteria stands out as a model example of citizen journalism. I can’t top Ace’s summary of the interview:

His frequent lament in this interview is that he takes no pleasure in the stellar job he did, because there were people being paid by critical, once-respected institutions to do this job but refused to do so. Forcing an obscure professor from New York to do the media’s and academy’s work for them.

Read the whole interview.

ALSO: The appearance of KC Johnson in the news again reminded me of something. Despite ex-John Edwards blogger Amanda Marcotte’s attempts to blame her plight on a cadre of right-wing extremists, the fact remains that it was KC Johnson — a self-described liberal who “used to think the New York Times was the Bible” — who initially blew the whistle on Marcotte when he pointed out a post in which she railed against CNN for not reporting the “correct” version of the story, in which white lacrosse players accused of raping a black woman are always guilty.

Man. I’m always amazed at how vast the right-wing conspiracy really is!

UPDATE: Tom Maguire e-mails:

The KC Johnson post of Feb 2 to which you link actually cites Liestoppers and Betsy Newmark; Ms. Newmark cites this James Taranto “Best of” from Feb 1. LieStoppers also published on the evening of Feb 1, but they don’t seem to credit Taranto.

He’s right. I guess what I meant is that, in terms of Memeorandum rankings, KC really raised the issue’s profile — his post got a lot of links. But I should have recognized Liestoppers, Newmark, and Taranto for the work they did.