Gambling on "collaboratition"

Great piece on 60 Minutes last night about cheating from insiders on online poker sites. What really struck me was that the bulk of the investigative lifting was done by aggrieved gamblers (who also happened to be attorneys). The point is that they piled through tons of documents and spreadsheets to prove the pattern and isolate the likely culprits. And even though the gamblers weren’t so-called unbiased Journalists, 60 Minutes and The Washington Post teamed up to follow up on their research and go ask the bad guys and their de facto accomplices tough questions…
With cutbacks rampant in traditional media, few news orgs have the luxury of chasing down a juicy investigative thread that requires heavy data analysis. In fact, the analysis could only be done by someone with a stake in its outcome. By the same token, these gambler-researchers, once they had their scoop, could likely neither afford the travel nor get the access that the traditional media outlets utilized in the story. And they certainly don’t have the same bully pulpit to spread the news.
It’s “collaboratition” at its best. And it is the future new reality.