Feb. 18, 2009

The Wisdom of the Crowd..., Jeff Howe

Howe, in between commenting on his own cleverness, discusses "crowdsourcing" which can also be thought of us journalists letting volunteers do the work/free PR/employing people as though they were unpaid interns. 

Receiving cell phone pictures or "documentation of experience in real time" - a phenomenon of the 2008 election that he cites in the beginning of the article -  is one thing, but getting to a point where you are depending on it, is another.  

I'de like to add a 4th worry to the list: Honesty from the so-called citizen contributors. 

When Journalists Blog..., Paul Bradshaw

Using the internet to break down boundaries is something that traditional journalists make see as a "new tool",  an idea my generation has been brought up with. From my point of view, writing for online is simply another source: TV, Radio, Newspaper, Online. It shouldn't be squeezed into a mold and eventually, unfortunately, it most likely won't be a place where, "anything goes".

Digging into social media to build a newspaper audience., Bill Adee

"Project O" seems more like the project of a PR group than a newsroom. However, with mainstream media organizations scrambling for funding, I can understand why. Attaching revenue to links on blogs has the potential to be more helpful than modern advertisement revenue. After all, no one actually goes to sponsored sites. However, traffic from links can send a story all over the viral internet. 

Ethical Values and Quality Control in the Digital Era..., Bob Steele

Becoming a slave to gathering readership is one of the most dangerous risks to journalistic integrity today. Until a better system for funding the media is created, this risk continues to exist. 

Suggest a topic..., John A. Byrne

My first reaction t this article is that comparing the trend of dying newspapers to being "massive casualties of a war" is a little much. Secondly, I'm one to advocate for newspapers going online and supplemental (possibly analytical) magazine-style print editions continuing to exist; think, The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, The Nation, The Atlantic, etc. I can't imagine having to read any of these magazines online.