This week's issue of my free weekly newsletter, A-Clue.Com, dealt with journalism. (Subscribe here.)

Specifically, I'm looking at the impact of Google Maps on our business, and how we practice journalism, as well as how we deliver it to readers. (Speaking of which, Google has satellite imagery of New Orleans taken at 10 AM on August 31 available here.)

Talk about shock and awe...)

There's a saying that bloggers are journalists who won't make a five-minute phone call, while journalists are bloggers who won't spend five minutes on Google.

Both views have something to them, although I'd say that Google keeps getting better, while the phone doesn't.

But there's a bigger secret neither side tells you.

We seldom leave our desks.

It's a question of efficiency, one I learned as a very young reporter.

If I went out to cover a meeting, or conduct a single interview, I lost about a half-day, minimum. You have to drive there, and back. Things may not start right away. You've got to transcribe your notes. (I started this life before laptops existed, and took my notes on an IBM Selectric, believe it or not.)

So you have to make hard decisions. How important is it to "be there?" How vital is it to look that person in the eye?

Bloggers are, if anything, worse. We're not bound by journalism's ethics. Many of us aren't pretending to do journalism at all - we're ranting. So if bloggers do anything, they spend a few minutes online collecting links. That proves it!

Not exactly, in either case. I have learned this first-hand recently, while preparing for the launch of atlanta.voic.us.

It was an easy story, but I chose to do it in a new way. The local paper said that the Jackson Square condominiums down on Buford Highway were going to be bought by the government, after flooding numberless times over the previous five years. The federal government would give $3.8 million, the locals $1.2 million. The residents would not get the market value of their property, nothing like it, but they would get something.

In order to make the story more interesting, I went to Google. I found several listings for Jackson Square Apartments, but none of the addresses were on Buford Highway. I saw that they were condos, so I tried Jackson Square Condominium. There was a cached listing with an address.

I trotted out Google Maps and a new tool they've got, the hybrid mode. I clicked around and found what looked like a creekbed to its south. I followed the creek east and found, what do you know - a lot of dirt scraped out for a new apartment development.

The paper made it seem that the flooding started five years ago, which makes some sense, since before that Georgia was in drought. The last few years we've been in flood. And with every rain Jackson Square has flooded.

What's changed in the meantime? That scraped dirt was turned into another, more valuable apartment complex, by another developer. Some more Googling revealed it's called The Gables at Druid Hills. It was originally called The Reserve at Druid Hills, according to an apartment rental listing. Entering that name, plus the word "developer," revealed it was built by Atlantic-Realty, an Atlanta company which is quite proud of its work.

Atlantic Realty is run by Richard Aaronson, who started the company in 1995. He's listed as a Bush contributor in 2004. His other local connections, however, are obscure.

So we have questions. Did Aaronson know his construction plan would flood-out his neighbors? Did anyone who granted him permission to build know that? What else don't we know, about the impact of hydrology on building?

The only way to get real answers is to go out there with a camera, maybe a surveyor, and document the flow of the water. Then interview both Aaronson and the planning authorities of DeKalb County, face-to-face.

That was what I originally meant to write about, the need to get out into the field and do some real field work, as journalists and as bloggers. But what the links above have just illustrated is just how much Google Maps, and its new hybrid mode, can actually do. The evidence of change in the flood plain is there, and it's pretty easy to find out who likely made that change happen.

Google Maps may be the most far-reaching, important tool journalists and bloggers have ever had. Especially when you can use the hybrid mode to see the lay of the land, you can get a ton of mileage out of this.

And a ton of new stories are just waiting to be written as a result.