CNN Gives Permission To The People To Be Citizen Journalists

Poking around the media landscape today, I came across an announcement that CNN plans to boost citizen journalism on its site....

The cable news network on Tuesday plans to announce it has created a new program to let users send in digital audio and video from breaking news events in their region. Users can e-mail or upload these so-called "I-Reports" directly from CNN's site.

Yes, in the typical, paternalistic MSM way, CNN will "let" the citizens send in their "I-Reports." Considering CNN's already gone out of its way to increase jouranlistic stupidity with Glenn Beck, I guess they feel they don't have much left to lose by having a few of the citizenry post their disaster videos to make it look like it's being part of that whole "citizen journalism" thing.

That's not citizen journalism. That's just taking advantage of people's need to be part of the glitz-and-glamour of the MSM Machine.

Revered journalist and NPR correspondent Daniel Schorr gives his perspective on blogging and the Internet:

What is good about it (the Internet) is people will not be able to suppress the news because you can always have a blogger who gets the story out,” Schorr says.

“But what we have here is a medium in which there is no publisher, no editor, no anything. It's just you and a little machine and you can make history. I find that scary. Nobody should get into print or on the air without some kind of editor. I have an institutional belief that nobody can be above having a good editor.”

Wish he would have read the recent report from Pew about bloggers and blogging. Once again, someone from MSM is perpetuating stereotypes and talking in generalities about something he seems to know so little about. First-person accounts of tragic events--if that's what he means by the stuff that makes history, such as the tsunami blogs/photos or the London bombing photos--are different in scope than other types of blogs. The reason they often go out without editing is the urgency of the situation--and that they are first-person. In those cases, editing could amount to censoring of timely visual information.

Which brings up the point as to when an editor becomes a censor. Editing for creating a coherent, readable product that is balanaced and judicious is important. Editing to hold back information because of an agenda is another thing totally--which seems to be what's happening with a lot of the coverage of the Middle East. Is that editing or censoring? Is the end-product good journalism or propaganda?

Wonder how Schorr would answer those questions.

How that cranky Media Guy almost made coffee come out my nose:

Did you catch the recent New York Times article about the rehabilitation of the word slut? Pulitzer Prize-winning D.C.-based Op-Ed columnist Maureen Dowd did. She wrote a whole column about it and helpfully rounded things out by doing some original reporting. Specifically, she interviewed her "23-year-old assistant, Ashley" "my classy 26-year-old girlfriend," "one 24-year-old Washington reporter" and "one 25-year-old writer in D.C." Thanks for reaching out, Mo.

You know, I was going to write a column this week that would consist of my interviewing my boyfriend, my cats and my toaster-oven about what they thought of Maureen Dowd's Times piece about a Times piece -- but instead I'm turning it into a screenplay for a Lifetime miniseries.

bwahahahahaha! (and the rest of the article's pretty funny too.)

Outing Integrity Corporation

What is the Integrity Corporation and why do their bots keep crawling my blog?

close to 50% of the hits to this blog today have been from Integrity Corporation. This usually indicates an aggressive bot that is scraping my blog content.

I have tried to speak with Integrity Corporation about their bots, but no one will even acknowledge that this is happeneing.

How do I know? I check my stats. They are there under "domain" as the source of the hit. When I check futher, the ISP is Peer 1 Network, located in San Antonio, TX. The computer they are using is the same one (although I only have a partial number.)

Who are these people? Why are their bots constantly crawling my blog?

I want an answer.

Update: Yes, I got an answer. Not from Identity Corp., but from a friend who knows about these sorts of things. He says I shouldn't be bothered about it, but I still am....strangely, this company's bots haven't been around lately.

Are Bloggers Journalists? Pew Sez Most Think Not

Here's a giant news flash for *some* journalists (yes, you know who you are) out there who've had their knickers in a bunch about the profession of journalism being molested and bastardized by "those bloggers": Pew discovers that most bloggers(64%)don't think of themselves as journalists.

Yes, that's right: 64 percent of folks who blog, who were surveyed by Pew between July '05 and Feb '06, don't believe themselves to be journalists.

Holy mother of pearl! What a (well-duh!) revelation!

So, all you former debate squad geeks can simply get over it now:
About 77 percent of blog authors, or "bloggers," said they post to express themselves creatively rather to get noticed or paid, according to the report, released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. About 34 percent of bloggers feel what they do is journalism--so those among you who really care about journalism can start having real conversations with this group of folks that could be called "citizen journalists." Most--I'd hazard a guess from knowing some of them-- are probably doing some very decent citizen journalism--with a method and some fact-checking and editing. Those are the folks journalists should befriend and be involved with--not criticize and deride--because most of them have very good reasons for what they are doing. They can articulate exactly why they are doing "citizen journalism" and I'm sure they'd be glad to share their reasons with you.

Oddly 8% of Internet users write blogs, while 39% read them. Yes, people are, for the most part, lurkers rather than joiners. But that's okay. There are always more book readers than book writers.

And there are always more voyeurs than participants.

Blogging then, for most of The People, is about expression, being creative, and conversation. It is only about journalism when the blogger decides it should be--and only about a third have made that decision.

Why some journalists and ivory-tower types have, over the years, had trouble getting with the facts that Pew confirms (and I've known since I started blogging) is simply that they do not read or listen to "The People" that they always flap their gums about. Do they want the world to bend to their will because of some over-inflated sense of self-importance? IMHO, a good remedy would be to stop talking among themselves, grow backbones, and start talking to The People. The People are not their servants nor subjects whose will needs to bend to their theories. The People--or, more appropriately in this case,The Users--know what they are doing, why they do it, and will be very glad to talk about it.

As far as I'm concerned, Pew's study confirms what I have been saying all along about my own blogging and the blogging of many of The People I know. Further, Pew confirms what I've always said about my personal blog: that it is on-going memoir and conversation, not journalism. What I do here on this blog is commentary and could, under certain circumstances, be a form of citizen journalism because of its content. But, neither blog is the journalism that I do for Corante or the journalism I've done for other publications. It is by directing my writing on a certain subject, and by having that writing go thru an editorial process,my accepting the process, and that I made money from it, that I can call myself a journalist.

The People know what they are doing, and why they are doing it. The People don't have a problem with journalism being journalism, and The People don't have a problem with blogging being blogging. The People know what blogging is and what journalism is, and know that the preponderance of what they are doing is not journalism. The People who want their blogging to be journalism, more than likely, know what they are doing--otherwise they wouldn't answer affirmatively to the question about their blogs being journalism.

I know the debates aren't over, and I'm sure there will be so many who will want to debate Pew's findings. But if I had the money, I'd send the folks at Pew a huge basket of gourmet muffins just to thank them for throwing down this wonderful gauntlet and sticking it to all those folks who so want to use blogging (and bloggers) to support their own personally-held ideologies and agendas.

The People have spoken. Now, all You need to do is listen.

Update From one of the Pew researchers: "Much of the public and press attention to bloggers has focused on the small number of high-traffic, A-list bloggers. . . By asking a wide range of bloggers what they do and why they do it, we have found a different kind of story about the power of the internet to encourage creativity and community among all kinds of internet users."

Also: 54% of bloggers say that they have never published their writing or media creations anywhere else; 44% say they have published elsewhere.

yes, we like to write!


Journalism, citizen journalism, media, Blogging, Blog, Blogs, Weblogs

Me and Some of My Closest Blog-Ladyfriends are featured in an article on Mass women bloggers for the Boston Globe. A pic of me is here on Maura Welch's blog. cool!

Fave blogger Ron Brynaert has briefly re-christened his blog Why Ann Coulter's Godless Book Should Be Pulled while he focuses on convincing us why the aforementioned should be acted on accordingly. I hear ya, Ron!

Good News/Bad News

First the good news:

Some of you may know that, deep down, my greatest love is academic research related to media and religion. I've got the opportunity to work on three different projects connected with this True Love of my life....

The first two involve the interplay between religion and mass media--one project on the use of imagery by various Protestant denominations. The second is on the incursion of the KKK in Worcester, Mass in the 1920's.

Apparently, the prior research I've done on both topics is needed somewhere. The projects will be "citizen journalism"--but only in the sense that they are self-published to the web.

Why? Because most publications won't touch the subjects no matter how well-researched they might be. They are "hot button" projects, not very Politically Correct--but, in our current social climate, they are needed. Even if the mainstream is too wussy or only wants research like this from approved academic institutions.

The third is a project with a broadcast journalist, so it's a different kind of journalism--but journalism. I'm the researcher--because there's stuff that, apparently, I'm an expert on...

I'm also working on an opportunity to do some lecturing in communications...because, oddly, I've built something of a career out of blogging (as nascent as it may be)

So, over the next month or so, *this* blog will be going dark...

I'll still be writing for the Corante Media Hub (I need to put *some* food on the table--besides, I really like that job! first one I've liked in years)...

I am also contributing to Poynter OnLine's E-Media TidBits column. This is a wonderful priviledge, and I need the time to concentrate to write appropriately for Poynter...

And I'm still blogging at my girly blog--life doesn't stop happeneing and the writing over there is some of the best un-professionally published stuff I've ever written.

So what if it isn't hard-hitting and topical all the time. It's great writing. You'll like it. Heck, I may even blog about networked journalism and the people formerly known as the audience...but it'll be different.

I could care less about my Technorati Rank, too. What's it going to get me at this point compared to a well-researched piece of scholarship on something nobody knows a darned thing about? There's something terribly satisfying about watching people's faces light up when you tell them some piece of history they never knew.

I've contacted the library at my alma mater and will be breaking out the 3x5's again (yes, I have a laptop, but old habits die hard.) I'm looking forward to days in "the dungeon" reading copious copies of Christianity Today, The Christian Century, and Film Quarterly.

Honestly, that's my idea of a grand summer vacation...

and if you're going, I'll see you at BlogHer!

Media Giraffe: A Final Note

I've been bopping around the blogosphere over the past couple of days, and I knew what I said at the closing wouldn't be heard quite the way I meant it (must learn to sync mouth and brain)...

When I said that I only saw "people' in the room, I meant that there was no difference between the people and the journalists who were there...there was no us-them. We were all People.

My frustration was with the great number who had left after the Wednesday dinner, who were wringing their hands over the '04 election, or who left by Thursday lunch.

That was the sad thing. Many of them didn't get to meet many of us who were in the room.

When professionals--be they doctors, dentists, lawyers, journalists--never bother to talk with the people, how can they understand what the people are doing?

Too few are having experiences like John Donley's or Teresa Hannifin's (at Boston Globe) or are conducting the great experiments that go on at WashingtonPost.com....too few journo schools are doing the cool things that Paul Grabowitz talked about. And SPJ is really priviledged to have a leader like Dave Carlson.

Am I expecting too much? Is it that so much of this is still in its infancy? Maybe that's what my concerns are--maybe my concerns are that things *are* in their infancy and everyone has to be *very* careful. We can't afford to be wringing our hands over the past, walking away, turning our backs. We need to be in the same room, talking with one another, not about one another....

then again, maybe that's another conference. Maybe this was only the beginning...


MGP2006 Journalism, citizen journalism, media, Blogging

Media Giraffe: Learning What's Next (and what's not)

I keep thinking about how there has been much discussion about disruptive technologies

It's not necessarily the technologies that are disruptive as much as it is how people use them.

People created craigslist and eBay and Monster.com. People create blogs. People use the medium of the Internet to do things they never thought could happen. Who knew we could get out there and have conversations with people all over the world without incurring huge telephone bills??

I am struck, though, how *some* journalists do not seem to understand that blogs are conversations. With the exception of a handful of big bloggers, most blogging is conversation between people. The internet is like a town square and these are our little soap boxes.

We really *do* have the right to have conversation--whether we call all those conversations journalism...well, that's for another (legal) debate.

Yesterday, the Media Giraffe Project Summitt
concluded. Today, I'm still dehydrated and burnt-out. Can't ever seem to get enough water at these things. There was a lot of info to process, a lot of ideas and stuff going around that can't be explained post-conference

We were a small group at the end--people and journalists. We had our own takes on what went on, what happened in the four days. Many agreed that there was a lot of self-congratulatory stuff on the first days, and that at times there seemed to be two conferences (one for journalists, one for people) going on at the same time. Someone pointed out (and I forget who) that all of us in the room constituted a small group of people who are concerned about what's happening and want to do something about it (I would include some of those who had to leave before then end, too.)

Ultimately, my take is this: There are lots of problems in big newspapers that citizen efforts alone cannot fix. There are some good people who are aware of those problems (corporate ownership being a very big one) and who would like to see changes. What shape those changes will take, however, still need to be hashed out.

But pandering to the citizenry with "free blogs" and "get your voice heard!" stuff isn't going to help. If anything, in less-urban regions, might distract people from the real shenanigans that are going on in town governments--let alone keep them ignorant of what's going on nationally.

The people are not "zombies"--we are out here having conversations about all sorts of topics, and my sense is that papers want to control and co-opt those conversations by putting them under their umbrella. There's something about that idea that stinks a bit. I don't mind being listed on the local site, but I don't think I could write for them. I like writing for Corante because what I write about has a certain focus.

And I believe that local areas with only one newspaper need citizen efforts to be independent. Paul Bass of the New Haven Independent made that clear...as well as there being a need for independent investigative citizen journalism (via blog) on ePluribus Media (esp. the projects done by Ilona Meagher and Paul Thomas) and independent citizen journalism on tough topics like religious liberty being done at Talk to Action (Fred Clarkson and Bruce Wilson are men after my own heart! so great to find people who are local who share the same esoteric passionate interest)

Which leads me to what was, for me anyway, the most important part of the Summitt: meeting more local bloggers and citizen journalists (and where I learned that the small-town, independent paper journalist is just as much a "citizen" as anyone who works online.) There were so many that I can't even remember all their names. As Lisa Williams and I talked about, we need to have a place where we can list where we all are, what we do, and who we are. We need to be able to stay in touch with and support one another. Finding one another is the hardest thing. Once we do that, maintaining the connections won't be all that hard.

The citizen journalists and bloggers in New England need to be organized--and we need to do it ourselves. Our independence is more important than anything we might do to save the monolithic newspapers in most of our geographic areas.

Which leads me to those monolithic papers and big media journalism in general: stop trying to co-opt citizen journalism. There are bigger problems--corporate ownership, crappy content and sagging revenues--that can't be fixed by involving the citizenry in your efforts. If you want to continue to turn out a "professional" product, don't look to independents. Let independents do what they want to do--it is their right. All that can come out of absorbing independents--on the local scene esp.--is a wal-mart style journalism replete with overworked, underpaid and barely qualified journalists who will move on when they get a better opportunity (I have it on good information that this is already happening in many small towns.) In other words: take an inventory (or get someone to help you do it)of your own management and marketing decision-making, look at what's going wrong on the inside and fix the problems that have been building since the push for corporate ownership. Stop looking to the people to solve a series of complicated problems that they had not part in creating.

All in all, though, the Summitt was very successful. It got a bunch of us who are local, who may never have met otherwise, to finally meet face to face. It got some journalism professionals talk among themselves in a different way (Chris Peck and Steve Sila shephered that effort and stuck it out till the very end) and even if we're not on the same page or totally seeing eye to eye, more progress was made here than might have been made at other conferences...

Even if we couldn't break the Plexiglas Ceiling of journalism's upper echelons....in some ways, that can't be expected. They are who they are, and the only way things will change is from the bottom up....but not by making the "bottom up" efforts part of the bottom line. That's just not our job.

Update: here's a great follow-up from Ilona (and great comment from Cho) at ePluribus Media.

Update: John Burke's 6/29 post at Editor's Weblog quotes Helen Thomas:“Anyone with a laptop thinks they’re a journalist.” This is false. Anyone with a laptop now has a voice. Not all voices are journalism, nor do they purport to be. And all those voices don't need permission from the Establishment to have conversation. and Jeff Jarvis:“Let’s not make this another bloggers vs. journalist conference, not about competition, us vs. them… That debate is over... We should be talking about opportunities, success stories, invention, creativity...." we talked about all that at the citizen journalism track. Where were you, Jeff?


MGP2006 Journalism, citizen journalism, media, Blogging

Embarassing conference moment #238 My cards have a typo. The addy for this blog is wrong and it ends up directing people somewhere else. Good thing I have some old cards with the right addy.

Media Giraffe: Getting to Work

It's 5pm. I just got done giving an interview on my views on citizen journalism for a documentary being done by a Cambridge TV station. If there's one thing that has stood out for me so far at this particular conference it's been meeting people who are local. As I explained to the young woman who was interviewing me, it's been difficult for people in W. Mass to find one another. Partly geography, partly because, unlike out in the eastern part of the state, we don't have a place that will support us or that we can use to hold meetings, etc. Maybe that's something that will evolve out of this conference. That would be a good thing.

Bloggers out here, like lots of bloggers, all have different reasons for blogging--but I think there are less of us out here (can't speak to the reason why) and without the auspices of a university, we don't have a place to rally. Hence, we don't find each other. I know that my talking about this conference helped get some people here. But I know there are other bloggers out here that don't know about me, don't read me, and didn't find out about the conference.

Some bloggers, too, are just private. They do what they do for their own reasons, but they're not particularly interested in meeting other bloggers or interacting with other bloggers. Most certainly, it is their choice.

I'm sitting in one of the later citzen journalism sessions. They're talking about setting up a post-conference space of some kind to post on. This track--the citizen journalism track--has been run very well. The people who have been speaking have been incredible, and are truly the ones to give the best information.

I don't necessarily consider what I do citizen journalism. Yes, I'm a citizen commentator--but not a citizen journalist (unless commentary is journalism--oh, it's all so darned subjective!). Mostly because I'm not reporting on or for a community. I write about a subculture--the blogosphere and the different groups that interact with it--mostly how journalism/journalists interact with it. The writings are my observations, or comments, or information I want to share. It was fun chairing the panel this morning...because what I've done with blogging interfaces with cit j and I understand what they're doing, and I think it's important. Everyone was very clear that what they're doing is not meant to replace journalists. They do what they do because they want to, and would eventually like to get paid, but it's not about the bottom line.

Newspapers are, nowadays and unfortunately, about the bottom line--about making a profit. About selling news. Even if there is a civic reason for reporting the news, the necessity for advertising, and the importance of the advertisers, is related to paying investors and the Profit Margin.

One thing I've learned in this is that ownership matters. Corporate ownership's wreaked havoc with so many papers. It may be time for some papers to be privately owned again. And if so, they will need to be more interactive with the community. The Community's been interacting in various ways, so they're going to want it.

Yes, there's a downside to private ownership....but my sense is that every paper will find its niche. Right now there's huge upheaval. But within the upheaval, we have to make sure that the few do not dictate the terms for the many.

Tom Stites of the Center for Public Integrity was the only person who spoke (video archives here) to the socio-economic and social class divide in all this. And it's not that people don't have access. They have access. As Stites explained, it's that the news is not relevant to their lives because the news that's printed is the news for a different social class. Those who are not part of a partiular social class are considere "waste readers." Tom is editor and publisher of UU Magazine The text of his speech is at Dan Gillmor's blog

Imagine that--people considered "waste." Like garbage--because they're not Big Spenders. It was sad, but important for *somebody* to actually *say* that this is what the problem is--a large swath of individuals who could be reading the new do not because they are considered "waste" and not worth marketing to.

So, It leads me to think that what big media, and big journalism gets, is its own fault.

Back to the session: it's not being recorded or taped. It's a small group of less than 20 people, but people are talking. Any journaists here? Theres a guy from the NYTimes--or used to be with the NYTimes. I'm not sure. But there are good things being said and done here. There is progress here.

I'm not sure if the other days represented any progress or if it was, as I said previously, just a giant echo chamber.

I'm thinking again about Tom Rosenstiel's disagreement with me yesterday. Maybe media's made some progress, but they still don't get it.

I ws talking with John Burke of The Editor's Weblog Turns out that we read one another's stuff (he reads the Media hub), and there was some agreement between he and I that there are aspects of the blogosphere that media *still* doesn't get...

We had a wonderful conversation about newsmedia around the world...how different is it is from here. I often read news from India, and Korea, and all over the place--mainly because it comes in my Google Alerts for "journalism" "media" and "citizen journalism." I'm fascinated by the ways the media is consitituted in other countries

Vin Crosbie's take on last night's dinner discussion. Vin and I are very much on the same wavelength: old media can't just co-opt citizen journalism and get all utopian about it. Cit J. is not the "panacea" for the problems of old media. Old Media has to innovate if it's going to rebuild.

Media Giraffe: Money, money, money....

I'm in the afternoon panel, where they're discussing money (simulcast here.)

So far, interesting...David Beers from the The Tyee, Barry Parr from The Coastsider talked about how an adverstiser can potentially shut down a small pub, and that this is a challenge. Someone from The Raw Story is talking about the kinds of ads running...He also mentioned how sensationalism drives traffic to Raw Story. That's very true. Says it's worrisome--very true. Where do you draw the line when controversy sells?

All this kind of plays back to what Tom Rosensteil said to me earlier about "popular" blogs making very big money--but right now, when sensation and celebrity sell, only the sensational celebrities are going to sell. And how many of us who have something to say are the level of sensational celebrity?? Unless they have some sort of authority behind them before they start out, or if they can scoop the Big Boys on the press. "But it's really hard to get those kinds of stories out there, "says Raw Story guy. Big media doesn't necessarily think new media is credible, and he cites Howard Kurtz tearing apart the Terry Schiavo memo a la Rathergate--but then getting a little hamstrung when the guy who wrote the memo said it was credible.

New media's hard business....but eventually partnerships will do better than individual efforts (overall, I think.) Unless you're Jossip and don't care to have a life.

I'm wondering if I should put some ads on either of my blogs. It might generate at least some pocket change...

Who knows, maybe after awhile, like Jeff Jarvis' son, I'll be able to buy an iPod...

The guy from the Twin Cities Daily Planet says they're using the OhMyNews model--having citizens write then use journalists as 'gatekeeprs' (oh, just call them editors!) This model isn't too bad. They've been getting grants, have some ads, and have some contributors, too. Ads haven't been making them alot of money--but that's not a surprise.

Talent's really not a problem in new media. Money is. You can make it, but it right now resources are limited.

But so much of this is so new...there's so much that needs to grow. I keep thinking of Jamie Boyle at Beyond Broadcast kept reiterating how all of internet stuff is in its infancy. And so is the money.

Staci Kramer of PaidContent.org is talking about P.C. When she asked how many people knew about P.C., there were less than 10 of us in the room. They just got some funding (under $1 mil, but still it's not bad) She says she's a journalist and blogging is her style and software. That's very true--a style and a software. P.C. is blogging as journalism. I would never argue that point, and what they do, they do well.

What Staci has been explaining is why I don't believe all blogging is journalism. What P.C. does is different than other kinds of blogging...their efforts are a practice.

The guy from The Center for Public Integrity talks about raising money via foundations--and has done very well. They do a new model of investigative journalism. Non-profit investigative journalism, he says, is a new business model. He used to be a producer for 60 Minutes. "If the media was doing its job, it wouldn't need a Center for Public Integrity..." "Investigative journalism needs to flourish...it costs money....and many companies don't want to go there." "I'm trying to figure out what's possible here..."

Everything that's been said has been important--and all the efforts are so very new. It may be journalism, but it's in a new medium and the funding will come from different places. Maybe the way things are going is that the old models have to die and new models have to rise. Print papers might rise as a practicality out of new web publications.

Who knows....

Media Giraffe: Journalists talking about the people, not with the people

Right now, I'm sitting in the second half of the morning session at the MGP conference (streamed here.) Also check out other podcasts and blogs to get another perspective.

Yet once again, the journalists are talking *about* the people, not *with* the people. It's not like at the first We Media, where there were few people. There are many People here. There are a lot of people here (I'm glad to see the turnout is good)--but Jeff Jarvis is "hogging" the mic (yes, I joked with him about it) and the journalists are saying there's no divide between journalists and non-journalists, but the divide, more than ever, is extremely palpable right now.

Because they are talking among themselves, and calling on one another and ignoring those they do not know. Following tenets of human nature, it is obviously more fun to talk with one's friends than it is to talk with the free-range rabble.

Helen Thomas is making a point again about how the people are not journalists--but we can have conversations. She say how the people are "zombies"--we're not zombies. We are having conversations--like here and now--but they are not listening.

John Donley just talked about Katrina--and how people did the reporting. Yes, that happens and was esp in that instance it was both...people having conversation, telling others what was happeneing without opinion because there was no time for opinion. It became journalism because there weren't any professional journalists writing the stories.

Panelists are arguing about what's going on now--and if it's all good or all bad. But it's not all journalism per se as much as it's conversation. There can be good conversations and there can be bad conversations.

I used to think that limited access to the internet was limiting the variety of conversation. However, from the latest figures by Pew, it's not access. There's alot of access. People just don't think they have the power to communicate--or don't believe there's a strong, compelling reason to get into the conversation.

That, in part, has happened because of all the journalism that has been done about the conversation. Most of it--from horror stories about MySpace, to highlights about the rancourousness on political blogs--leaves people with a sense of trepidation and doubt about the modes of conversation.

Yet I wonder: If journalists don't jump out from behind the curtains and start talking with the people who show up at their conferences, they're going to keep going over the same ground and never learn a single thing about The People they believe they want to reach.

Update I thanked Jon Donley for pointing out that people doing citizen media are pretty smart--not gomers. However, Tom Rosenstiel, who's stuff I read often, and usually agree with, disagrees with me that the press is still down on conversation. So, I go up and talked with him afterward. He's seen progress in journo conferences over the past 3 years. There, I agree with him--yet I don't think he's seeing/hearing how much further things have to go. He says something about, in the future, a popular blogger will make $200 thousand a year, and I am doubtful of this for many reasons. What will one have to do to be popular? Be Christine Dolce? or Michale Arrington? (few of us could be the former even when we were young, and how many of us can really be the latter. Needless to say I do love what Arrington does!) Steve Fox from washingtonpost.com comes over and brings up Ana Marie Cox and Andrew Sullivan as 'bloggers' who have got book deals. I remind him that they were journalists first. He doesn't comment. There still seems to be some disconnect in the understanding of who many bloggers are--and they're not Cox nor Sullivan who were an editor and a journalist before blogging.

Makes me think "hmmm....are we talking about Bloggers or bloggers? are we talking about the Technorati Magic Middle or the A-list?"

Perhaps they don't see there is a difference. I see that there is. Will someone have to always be a journalist first, or will a blogger be able to also be journalist?

Because of the lack of professional licensing of journalism, journalism will, in some respect, remain a subjective term. Another audience member also sees journalism as as something that is performed (a process) rather than just a profession. Yet I see where the forces on one side want to consider *everything* journalism, and the other wants to say that journalism is a profession more than what one performs. Perhaps that, more than anything, is the crux of the matter.

Echo Chamber Redux

Tonight was the opening session of the Media Giraffe Project Inaugural Conference on the changing role of journalism and how it relates to maintaining our democratic system (or at least I think that's part of what it's about...)

and all I can say is that when you get a bunch of media men together who all know each other, you can bet that they're going to re-hash all the problems from the 2000 election, bitch and moan about all the trouble with George Bush, keep the mics among themselves, and pat each other on the back about what wonderful jobs they're doing.

Be that as it may, all I can say is that big media is no less responsible for creating echo chambers than bloggers. In fact, they're just as bad. Got to hand it to Jeff Jarvis and Vin Crosbie for keeping the echo chamber going (although Vin gave it a shot to keep it less echo-centric.) We were supposed to be talking about the future of media, not the foilbles of a past presidential election.

Criminey!

However, Helen Thomas' speech (and the Q&A) earlier in the evening was very interesting! To hear what she had to say about the way the White House Press Corps used to be was--well, like a history lesson. But one that was a grim reminder of how far we have come *from* the 20th century in a short period of time. The events of 9/11 have caused the press corps to roll over and die--and take the democratic party with them. The political situation is "rudderless, leaderless and have lost our way" and the problem in journalism is that "anything goes and there's no standard on accuarcy and truth."

She didn't have kind words for bloggers--once again stating how they're not reporters (mostly because they don't verify their sources--but that's not totally true)....and it seemed that she really wasn't all that familiar with the medium.

But I wasn't expecting that from Helen Thomas. (a podcast of Helen's evening dinner talk, recorded by Wayne McPhail, can be found at theRabble Podcast Network) Helen isn't a decision-maker in the big media process. Helen is, though, a vital part of its history.

I was, though, expecting a few kind words from the panel--esp. after Jay Rosen's piece this a.m. on "the people formerly known as the audience."

Tonight though it seemed like conversation was for "the journalists formerly known as the people." There was lots of handwringing over the past, and little talk about the future. There was some praise for Times Select with only the barest of acknowledgement that its best columnists are no longer part of the conversation in the blogosphere...

Overall, it seemed like nobody wanted to talk about the conversation in the blogosphere. All they wanted to do was say "those bloggers!" and say how so many aren't truly reporting (maybe we're having conversation--duh!) and nobody really wanted to talk about why citizens are forming citizen journalism sites...with the exception of Jay, who brought out the fact that some regions have such piss-poor coverage that citizens need to jump in and do *something*.

I wonder if Jay spent any time around here in W. Mass, he'd feel that way...

I think what bothers me the most is that this bunch of folks--like most media folks--just do not get that the citizens doing citizens media are not a bunch of gomers with no teeth. Most are very educated. Some even have a smattering of journalism in their backgrounds (if I dig back far enough, I have it, too. It's like finding an irish relative in your otherwise un-irish gene pool.) There is also very little understanding of small-town life, how many people know the goings on and history of towns, and if you get it wrong, they'll let you know. The audience are your fact checkers (as Lise LePage and Chris Grotke told me about their work out in Brattleboro.)

They also pooh-poohed Grace Sullivan, who spoke up about a lack of newspapers in public schools--but how kids in tony private schools all have their own subscriptions to the New York Times. They also refused to address the issue that there are inconsistencies between print and online versions of the same story. This is true and happens often. I've found it in the Times, and my friend Bill Anderson also found it in the Times (with John K. Galbraith's obit).

I know what Grace is talking about. When kids at public schools don't read papers any more than they can scan a piece of poetry, you can bet none of them will make it to Princeton.

So, to use a crude colloquialism: don't piss on our shoes and tell us it's raining.

Shava Nered, who I met at Beyond Broadcast, Grace and I were talking afterward, and Shava mentioned how she felt offended--basically by the ignorance of the panelists about blogging. I, too, was offended because other than Theresa Hannifin, nobody got that blogs aren't necessarily about reporting--but they are often about conversation.

I was going to ask the panel if any of them ever did Technorati vanity searches just to see if anyone was linking to their stuff--and if they found the links, would they engage the person in conversation. I later asked Theresa about this, and she laughed. She said she doubted most of them knew what a Technorati search is, let alone do one. And interact with a blogger?? Heaven forbid!

Oh, and if the Boston Globe taked Jon Garfunkel up on his stupid idea of Globe Select, there's going to be some serious squaking. Jon doesn't seem to want to acknowledge that Times Select not only removes its columnists from conversation in the blogosphere, but also makes their work inaccessable to those who do not have the money to pay for the service. What Jon doesn't seem to remember is that when most newspapers originally set up their online presence, that presence was only meant to be a gateway or promotion for the main site. The gateway was never meant to become the main portal. Now, all efforts to monetize are short-sighted, back-handed efforts to play catch-up on a boat that left the dock sometime ago. There is no clear evidence that monetizing now will help a struggling paper--but it certainly will deny access for a good sector of the populace who cannot affor the service

I don't think Jon understands that this is a form of social stratification of information--because there are few public libraries who are willing to pony up for Times Select, even though they are still buying the more reliable print version...Guess all readers are created equal, but some readers are more equal than others...Correction Staci Kramer and I were speaking, and she very courteously corrected my take on Times Select. Schools that get academic subscriptions do indeed get Times Select.

Until big media gets over its overinflated sense of self-importance and begins to listen to The People in the Room (who have more to tell them than their stats), there will only be more echo chambers like tonight and little in the way of real conversation.

I will be interested to see how it all unfolds tomorrow...

Never Send a Boy to Do a Grown-Up's Job

At the rate it's going, the BBC is never going to understand citizen journalism..."citizen journalist" Frankie Roberto spent a week at the Beeb in an effort to find out more about "what separates professional reporters from amateur enthusiasts such as himself."

But Frankie's not your average citizen: he's a web developer who works for WikiNews. I wonder what he's doing at the Beeb: he could be looking to turn himself into a Beeb journalist more than exploring citizen journalism....and if that's the case, that's fine. Just be a bit more honest about it.

I wonder why Frankie didn't check out what independent citizens are doing in England for citizen journalism...or do they not have efforts such as iBrattleboro or H2OTown or Muncie Free Press or Chi-Town Daily News

Overall I suspect Frankie's motives in this, and the Beeb's motives. Actually, the whole thing looks like a publicity stunt on the part of the Beeb. here's Frankie's blog. Note that there is no blogroll, even if there is an archives, and most of his reporting is basic blogging about this, that or the other in his life. So, is Frankie then a "citizen journalist" in the broadest sense of the term? Then pretty much anyone who blogs is a "citizen journalist"....which dilutes the efforts of those interestsed in serving their community because their local media has failed...

And where did the Beeb find him? Thru WikiNews? Or was he just an enterprising go-getter who contacted the Beeb on his own? I understand that motive. But be honest about it.

Frankie says that by going to the Beeb he wanted to discover more about "citizen journalism"...which begs the question: Should the MSM be defining and guiding citizen journalism efforts? I don't think it's MSM's place to be steering citizen journalism directly thru its channels. Perhaps it's the place of journalists who are disaffected, who know the process and may have been professional--but not the established media.

With their ever-eroding business models, and their shrinking profit margins, can MSM be trusted to do the right thing by citizens? I'm not so sure any more...

I have to hand it to the Beeb though. It's transparent here --making it quite clear that it wants to be the "citizen journalism" portal for England. But doesn't that just, ultimately, translate out to paying people to do the jobs of reporters?? Perhaps what the Beeb, and lots of media outlets need, are citizen journalism efforts that aren't part of the MSM...and maybe, more than ever, the MSM needs Watchdogs rather than lapdogs.

Journalism, citizen journalism, media, Blogging,

Over the next few days...

I will be moderating the keynote panel--"What Is Citizen Journalism?"--of the Citizen Media Bootcamp session at the MediaGiraffe "Democracy and Independence: Sharing News and Politics in a Connected World" conference. It's at UMass-Amherst 6/28-7/1. Great people on the panel, including my friend Lisa Williams, Lise LePage (and Chris Grotke will be there), Paul and Ilona from ePluribus Media and author/activist/journalist Eesha Williams.


oh and I'm a last-minute Citizen Media "devil's advocate" panelist on saturday's Merging Forms: Is the Medium Still the Message?” panel. Robb, Steve and I worked out the logistics of the "un-panel" and Paul's willing to go along with us, so it should be fun. Yesterday's conference call was a hoot, and we all kind of wished Steve had hit the record button. Hopefully we'll get a podcast out of the panel.

"Toto, Perhaps We're In Beijing Now..."

Get this: In China Government turns screw on mass media and social revolts:

The National People's Congress Standing Committee has decided that media agencies breaking news “on emergencies in the country” without authorization will face fines ranging from 50,000 to 100,000 yuan [from 5,000 to 10,000 euros]. The decision is part of a draft law being reviewed by the executive body.

Emergencies listed by the law include: natural disasters, accidents, public health crises and “social security crises”, such as protests and clashes between farmers and local officials, which are on the rise.

but before you tut-tut, get a load of this:

GOP Congressman Calls for Criminal Charges Against 'NYT'

Appearing on Fox News, (Rep. Peter)King (R-NY) said, "The time has come for the American people to realize, and the New York Times to realize, we’re at war and they can’t be on their own deciding what to declassify, what to release. If Congress wants to work on this privately, that’s one thing. But for them to, on their own, for the editor of the New York Times to say that he decides it’s in the national interest -- no one elected them to anything.

And the Times replied:

We weighed most heavily the Administration's concern that describing this program would endanger it. The central argument we heard from officials at senior levels was that international bankers would stop cooperating, would resist, if this program saw the light of day. We don't know what the banking consortium will do, but we found this argument puzzling. First, the bankers provide this information under the authority of a subpoena, which imposes a legal obligation.

Second, if, as the Administration says, the program is legal, highly effective, and well protected against invasion of privacy, the bankers should have little trouble defending it. The Bush Administration and America itself may be unpopular in Europe these days, but policing the byways of international terror seems to have pretty strong support everywhere. And while it is too early to tell, the initial signs are that our article is not generating a banker backlash against the program.

I don't normally like to get political, but it really seems that the Bush administration, with the help of Australian Rupert Murdoch's Fox News is getting more aggressive about wanting to take away our right to a free press. They're pushing all the right buttons about "national security." But what does Murdoch or Fox care about the freedom of the press in the U.S. or "national security"? About as much as they care about teenagers on MySpace.com...

Dick Cheney to award Gerald R. Ford Journalism prizes today--can you say "Irony?"