The idea of the beat reporter is alive and well, even if the institutions that sparked it aren’t doing so well. Bloggers — especially those who come from a more traditional journalism background — tend to focus very closely on specific topics if they want to do well. They are beat reporters, of a sort, just as many publications train reporters to be experts in a particular niche.

But the beats that may be crucial in today’s world aren’t quite the same ones that most general interest publications rely on. Sure, I still need to read what the health, real estate, and crime beat reporters produce.

The idea, however, that technology is entirely separate from everything else and can be covered by just one beat reporter is severely outdated. First of all, divorcing the relevant technology from topics like business and health removes it from the context that readers need to understand the topics. Technology is integrated into every part of our lives; even someone who doesn’t use technology personally brushes up against it every time she leaves her house.

Second, however, there are certain issues related to technology that, when bundled together, make an overwhelming mess for a reporter. Having the same person covering privacy issues and reviewing the latest hardware specs just doesn’t make sense. Nick Diakopoulos makes a very good argument for creating beat reporter positions that cover algorithms specifically. Personally, I’d love to see a privacy beat.

How these changing beats may play out is more a question of resources at individual publications than pure journalistic idealism but hopefully editors will take note of Diakopoulos’ article and consider who should really be covering what in their newsrooms.