Distributed Journalism: An Example

The Daily Kos is looking into a White House correspondent with questionable bona fides. People in various places are contributing some reporting, and the results promise to be worth seeing, one way or the other.

Comments

[/pd]

The discourse happening on "Jeff Gannon" - is a classic example of the the cluetrain in motion !!

..and...

"May we all live in interesting times" -old chinese saying !

[HT]

Very interesting.

Most professional news organizations simply don't have the resources to do all of the digging that the amateur sleuths at DailyKos have undertaken.

Gives "power to the people" a bit of an update, don't it?

[Howard Sands]

There he goes again.

There was an interesting posting here a few hours ago, regarding the Democrats (and Dan) trying to regurgitate the discredited attacks of Valerie Plame and her husband. With nary a peep about the most dramatic event post 9/11 - the victory for the Bush Administration of Iraqi elections succeeding beyond the wildest expectations of the most starry-eyed neoconservatives.

But Dan apparently censored it.

I hope Dan's prospective investors are watching his idea of open, participatory journalism: a rigid, authoritarian Left wing thought police.

Last month, it was a couple of self-identified black conservative bloggers. This time, a neocon.

Who's next?

[Hiawatha Bray]

I guess I don't get it. Some right-wing guy sets himself up as a journalist. My reply: A hearty So What? If the era of the Internet has taught us anything, it is that anybody who wants to be a journalist is a journalist. There are no "bona fides." Does the guy have links to right-wing organizations. Maybe. Again, so what? Either what he reports is true or it's false. That's the only meaningful criterion left. And that's as it should be.

[Anna]

The most recent info seems to be at Plame Diaries - Where We Stand: Part VIII
(from "recommended diaries", on right sidebar)

(am providing this link for the benefit of any other non-regular-Kos readers who are slow at getting their bearings...)

[tiffany]

@howard: the point dan is making is about the *PROCESS.*

the blogger floats a hypothesis.
commenters dispute and critique the hypothesis, offering skepticism, research, and feedback.
the blogger updates hypothesis.

even if this happened on the other end of the political spectrum, it'd be a new way of doing journalism.

[Dan Gillmor]

This posting was about how a site is using grassroots journalism techniques to get more information than one reporter can do alone. Show me some right-wing examples and I'll point to them, too.

The posting I deleted is from my longstanding troll, who is not welcome here.

[Dan Gillmor]

And Howard, there is absolutely no evidence that these "self-described black conservatives" -- supposedly well-known bloggers who oddly don't show up in a Google search -- were anything of the sort. It was, as far as I could tell, pure trolling.

I'm not going to tolerate it here. Period.

[Howard Sands]

Be careful, Dan. The "smart money" is watching.

I just don't think you can continue to play the far Left partisan in one posting, then parade around as a "next-generation journalist" in the next. At least, not if you expect to attract funding from those VCs serious about generating content of interest to deep, wide, mainstream audiences. The kind that will populate revenue streams.

Maybe you should have two web sites.

I still believe it was unfair of you to demand personally identifying information from a slice of your readers with whom you disagree vigorously on partisan grounds, censor them, and to challenge their self-identification as members of a minority group.

(Although I know one of them personally, and can vouch for her, I was outraged when you asked me to "out" her bona fides, and refused to allow her to post here to refute your accusations about her directly.)

Stinks to high heaven.

[Dan Gillmor]

Absolutely false, Howard (if that's your real name). Among other things, I invited this person to contact me directly, and nothing happened. And if partisan disagreements were the criterion for deletions, many other things would be gone from this forum (and my old one).

You're trolling at this point. Please stop.

[davetomph]

Both the weakness and the strength of journalism is the "bona fides".

Does the NY Times confer more important bona fides than say, the Philadelphia Inquirer or Gloucester County (NJ) Times?

The answer is No. No journalism entity can confer better bona fides than another. It is part of free speech and everyone is equal.

And if that is the case, blogs can have just as valid bona fides as any other form of expression.

On the other hand, if journalists want to establish licensure, bona fides can be made secure, but only by virtue of the power of the license grantor -- usually the government.

So unless journalists want to set up a structure of licenses, journalists can't complain when anybody at all sets up a newspaper or blog.

No bona fides needed.

"Badges, Badges ... we don't need no stinkin' badges!!" ... From the Treasure of Sierra Maidre

[Alice Marshall]

The whole thing is a perfect case study on why you should never travel under false colors.

[troutfishing]

The effort that originated with SusanG's posting on Kos has evolved nicely. Offnet. ;)