Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism, Etc.

Where the Readers/Viewers Will Take Us

Merrill Brown has written an important report for the Carnegie Foundation. Entitled "Abandoning the News," it starts:

There's a dramatic revolution taking place in the news business today and it isn't about TV anchor changes, scandals at storied newspapers or embedded reporters. The future course of the news, including the basic assumptions about how we consume news and information and make decisions in a democratic society are being altered by technology-savvy young people no longer wedded to traditional news outlets or even accessing news in traditional ways. In short, the future of the U.S. news industry is seriously threatened by the seemingly irrevocable move by young people away from traditional sources of news.

Read it if you care about the future.

Grokster: The Court Understands

Reading the various accounts of the Grokster case that was argued this week at the Supreme Court, one thing is clear: The justices understood the stakes -- and they are plainly troubled by the threat to innovation if they rule in favor of the entertainment cartel and its allies.

Terri Schiavo, Rest in Peace

Now that she is gone, can we agree on that?

I'd Resign, but I'm Not a Member

The National Press Club shames itself by giving "Jeff Gannon" a pulpit. Sheesh.

(Via Romenesko)

Defending Journalism, Deciding Who's a Journalist

David Shaw's LA Times media column (reg req) this week was surprising not so much for its conclusion -- that bloggers don't deserve any special journalistic privileges -- as for its sloppiness.

Slate's Jack Schafer explains it well. Quote:

"Shaw seems to believe that the First Amendment and its subsidiary protections belong to the credentialed employees of the established corporate press and not to the great unwashed. I suggest that he—or one of the four experienced editors who touched his copy—research the history of the First Amendment. They'll learn that the Founders wrote it precisely to protect Tom, Dick, and Matt and the wide-eyed pamphleteers and the partisan press of the time. The professional press, which Shaw believes so essential in protecting society, didn't even exist until the late 19th century."

Meanwhile, Jeff Jarvis smartly breaks down the component parts of journalism: witnessing, asking, editing, commenting and distributing.

The question that we have to ask, in the end, is whether anyone deserves special treatment as a journalist. I think so, but I'm increasingly hard pressed to figure out how it'll work in world where anyone can be a journalist. More to come on this topic soon...

A Dying Craft, or a Dying Business?

UPDATED

Jay Rosen: Laying the Newspaper Gently Down to Die. But an industry that won't move until it is certain of days as good as its golden past is effectively dead, from a strategic point of view. Besides, there is an alternative if you don't have the faith or will or courage needed to accept reality and deal. The alternative is to drive the property to a profitable demise.

I now take it for granted that newspapers are trapped -- highly profitable businesses that can't or won't take the kind of risks that will be crucial to survival.

I do not take it for granted that newspapers must die, however. And I definitely don't believe journalism is dying. It's changing.

Previous media forms didn't die even though they lost hegemony to new media. Some newspapers make their way through what's coming, because they'll become the community square for whatever community it is that they serve, geographic, demographic or whatever. (That's why the Wall Street Journal, for all its cluelessness about the Web in an archival sense, has a future, and why some local papers still have time to become the primary authorities in their areas before the online competition eats their lunch.)

The notion of driving a property to a profitable demise is pernicious, and impossible to pull off in a coherent way. It assumes that newspaper companies can milk the properties gently into their good night. No way.

What will happen, if newspaper companies don't start working right now, is the following: Profits will dwindle to a point where Wall Street demands higher profits (or kills the stock price, making even a good newspaper company vulnerable to takeover by one of the real sharks out there). This will set off a death spiral of firing staff, losing readers and advertisers, firing more staff and so on. It will not be a slow process once it starts.

I've heard through the grapevine about newspaper executives who think the answer may well be to encourage some form of citizen journalism -- meaning, in their construct, getting people to do all the work pro journalists do today but for no compensation while the business collects the revenues. Now there's a business model -- not.

If the newspaper business does turn out to be dying, we need to make sure that journalism does not. I apologize to my blogging friends for saying this, but the free for all in the blogging world, however valuable (and I love it), is not sufficient to replace what we'll be missing.

We need ways to combine the best of the old and the new. That's what I'm working on.

The people we've called the audience play a key role, in several ways. As consumers (I hate the word) of news they have to make some choices. I believe they will pay for quality, to start with. But young readers have changed media. We in the journalism sphere need to innovate on new forms and delivery mechanisms as well as the journalism itself.

We also need, as I've said again and again, to involve the audience in the process. This is crucial. And I want to do it in a way that gives us all a stake in the outcome.

I don't know what it's going to look like in the end. I have some ideas. But I'm in the process of bringing together some smart people I've met in these travels, from the new and old worlds. They're passionate about their communities, the world and journalism. They know that journalism (real journalism) plays too big a role in our checks and balances to go quietly into the night.

This will become a combination of the old and new. I know that I (or anyone) can't figure it out alone. The conversation has already started, and I'd like to help expand it and find ways for all of us to work on some projects together. In coming days and weeks I'll be asking for help. (Send me an e-mail if you have ideas or might want to join this effort.)

The Broadcasters and Their Billions

Drew Clark (National Journal): Spectrum Wars. Generations ago, broadcasters got the right to use the airwaves -- now worth billions of dollars -- for free. Ever since, they have used heavy lobbying and political friendships to stave off rivals. But as the digital age unfolds, change is in the air.

Hypocrisy in the Ranks of the Powerful

It's not just DeLay who's a hypocrite. Turns out that Bush sued a car-rental agency, looking for a deep pocket.

In fact, there's hypocrisy in big amounts from the Republican pols who want to keep government out of our lives or insert it directly into our lives, depending on the circumstances.

Dwight Meredith has chapter and verse on his blog.

This could have been a heck of a news story -- compiling all of the cases -- for an enterprising newspaper. But a blogger pieced it together.

AP Won't Say It; Blogger Does

Bruce Schneier, a world-class authority on security-in-technology issues, points out an AP story reporting on the flagrant lies told by the Bush administration's Transportation Safety Administration about its scandalous handling of "private" passenger data. AP won't call the agency's dissembling for what it is -- lying -- but Schneier does.

This is one reason why people don't trust mass media -- the too-common fear of telling things as they actually are, perhaps for fear of offending people in power. And it's one more reason why domain experts like Schneier get increasing readerships.

Another Journalist on the Govt. Payroll

The only word for this latest tale of a journalist on the take from government is "sickening" -- and the question is how many more of these people will be exposed?

Interesting coincidence: The major cases of this unethical practice so far have involved the Bush brothers and their respective administrations in Washington and Florida.

Update: And here's the story of a "journalist" being paid to pitch the products he covers.

The TV stations claim not to know what's going on. Shame on them, too.