January 21, 2005
With only an audio stream, the experience of the first day of the Harvard conference was a bit hallucinogenic. The microphones picked up quilt-patches of status-establishing conversations here and there during the breaks, and there seemed to be a pretty equal distribution of grappling for territory and conciliatory analysis. Moderators once or twice remonstrated about "civility."
The predictable context:
1. Mainstream press and much academia: "Who are these people? How can anyone without our training and experience and institutional protocols and editorial personnel determine what information is necessary for a democracy? How can we be make sure the citizenry has to listen to us even if they disagree?" [our gloss];
and
2. Bloggers and out-of-the-contraption contingent: "All the journalism-school and newspaper-of-record verities are up for grabs. The business models are fraying, the audience has keyboards, and no longer are willing to swallow it from the media spoon. They want to check it out for themselves. And respond, question, add to it. The model is no longer one-to-many, it is many-to-many, and the quality of the conversation will depend on the relationship, not the lineage of the institution. There is no choice to continue in the old way."
Tidbits:
There has been a power shift from producers to the "people formerly known as the audience;" this has led to a loss of soverignty--exclusive control--by the journalists.
Journalists have not tended so much to their connection to their audience and the world, as to pursuing quality information.
The public thinks media companies pursue money and journalists self-aggrandisement.
Lack of credibility is fueling the growth of blogs.
Who are these people who write all these [op-ed] columns?
The old metaphor [was] The New York Times front page as God's memo on the day.
We're in the unpredictable middle of things, like radio in the 20s. When money affects the blogosphere, it will change quickly.
The main difference is that on the net power is different. The people you are speaking to have more power than you learned in journalism school, are suddenly empowered vis-a-vis [journalists]. A professional after 20 years in the profession has to rethink what they are doing--It's embarrassing.
Rathergate was not hostile to the media, it showed the power of the media.
Journalism was founded on the assumption that the audience lacks knowledge and information and "that's why they need us." As it turns out, the audience has lots, journalism needs to tap it and deliver it back to them.
Every [blog] reader is a writer. It is the opposite of the MSM regime. The reader can talk back....Every reader is connected horizontally to the other readers....It isn't really accurate to say there's no editor. Rather, the editing occurs after publication. Readers are your editors.
If ethics in journalism is now about relationship,
1. What kinds of promises might parties to this relationship care most about? Talk about disclosure and transparency makes little promise about where the relationship is going.
2. If transparency is not enough, what else?
3. What’s the coolest tool we could create that would help us create trust and a better representation of reality? Are a technorati, wiki, the best ways of addressing this?The coolest available tool to increase trust? Link to your sources. Links show a different attitude toward the reader, "See for yourselves, don’t take our word for it, check it out." Not just "Take it from us."
The first reporter who figures out a weblog is a great tool for drawing knowledge in and creates a reporters’ weblog about the gathering of knowledge, will make a name and influence journalism. (S)he will demonstrate how powerful distributed intelligence is, and will break stories no one else does.
The question narrowly framed by the end of the first day was Is there something we can do collectively to help us arrive at better representation of reality?
Your un-certified, unedited un-press-credentialed correspondent, over and out.
Stay tuned for much shorter 2d-Day Report.
When.
Ever.
Update: Jeff Jarvis, being there, knows who said what. And Jay Rosen's PressThink report is now up, has the best morsel of agreement across a partisan divide between Powerline's Hinderaker and Dave Scripting News Winer:
"We have deeper values that bind us." The deeper values are: let's go around the bastards.
A don't tread on me that resonates at chez Dilys.
Comments