Citizen journalists to the rescue

Over at Jack Bogdanski’s excellent, provocative and popular bojack blog, Jack has posted a section of a speech given by Gary Imhoff, editor/blogger at the DCWatch web site in the nation’s capital.

No, the site doesn’t track the comings and goings of lobbyists and legislation. Instead it keeps an eye on the city, its government and its neighborhoods.

Imhoff's speech contains the following "new media" call for citizens to transform themselves into journalists and to submit their stories to DCWatch:

We try to convince reporters and their editors that they should cover the stories that are interesting and important to us. Occasionally, we succeed; more often we don't. But in our local neighborhood listservs and in themail, we are able to act as reporters ourselves. We escape the filters of ‘news judgment' that keeps a lot of important news out of our news outlets. We get to inform others directly, and in the end we all end up better informed.”

Jack offers his site as Portland’s place for amateur reporters to share news items. In fact, if you read the bojack site, you know it already does, with barbs added.

If you live in or around Hillsdale, I welcome neighborhood news from you for my on-line Hillsdale News. Write me at editor@hillsdalenews.org.

Meanwhile check out Jack’s post (and the dozens of comments to it) on how the right-wing has jumped on-board and has positioned itself to lead the Sam Adams recall effort. Jack, who favors the recall, thinks the right-wing involvement of celebrities like radio-talker Lars Larson could be the kiss of death for the recall initiative.

Journalism's death and resurrection

The New York Times reported Tuesday morning that fewer mid-career journalists are applying for prestigious sabbatical fellowships. The reason: They’re afraid that they might not have jobs waiting for them when their sabbaticals end.

Case in point, in an adjacent Times story: The San Francisco Chronicle’s management is slashing away at the newsroom. In mid-May bean counters announced they were cutting about a quarter of the newsroom staff — 80 union and 20 management jobs.

So what’s going on? A short answer: falling advertising revenues and readership.

And Craig’s List. Classified ads were once the bread and butter of the newspaper business. No more. The real buying-and-selling action is on-line, and it’s free. (Confession: I just bought a motor scooter on Craig’s List and have sold a half dozen old typewriters there.)

So, with dwindling revenues to pay for the news, where are we going to go for it in the years (months and weeks ahead), and who is going to pay for it and will it be reliable?

In a sense each of us will end up editing (selecting) our own news from the gaggle of news and information (and rumor and hearsay) on the Web.

Perhaps we need some “Good House Keeping” seal of journalistic approval. Someone is bound to try it. But let’s face it, the Press has always been a grab back at best. And dead wrong at worst.

Consider how Mainstream media caved to public pressure and patriotism (some might call it jingoism) and gave George Bush a free ride after 9-11. If ever a vigilant Press was needed, it was then. Instead we got flag-waving, chest pounding and drum beating.

So the news never comes with guarantees. “Reader beware” then, now and forever. Never mind which medium — print, TV, radio or the Web.

Back to those fellowships going begging from pink-slip phobia. The Times quotes Boyce Rensberger, head of the Knight Science Journalism Fellowships at M.I.T, saying: “I feel a little queasy encouraging young people into journalism. It’s such a precarious business right now.”

I think Rensberger means “Old Media” journalism is a “precarious business right now.” Actually, it is moribund. As for “New Media” journalism, it's mysterious. No one has come up with a business plan that produces both profits and excellence.

Maybe this new media gives us the opportunity to finally break the business-model mold. How about not-for-profit news that answers not to advertisers or stockholders, but only to the public — a vigilant, demanding and, yes, outspoken public.

Significantly, that’s exactly the kind of public that the interactive, burgeoning Web is attracting and making possible.

Precarious?

Try “revolutionary.”

Another news media turning point

Here's further evidence of the shift from old media to new media.

Yesterday's New York Times carried a story about a Boston community newspaper that has begun running blog items in print.

Until now, newspapers ("old media") were considered the legitimate news source that provided content for "new media" web sites to disseminate.

With the Boston development, news now originating on-line is being legitimized by dissemination through print, the "old media."

The reversing trend is certain to continue until the newspaper-reading public fully migrates to on-line information.

Some of the reason for the reverse flow of information is found in the observations of John Wilpers, the editor-in-chief of BostonNow, the free-distribution daily that is printing the blogs. He says, in the words of the Times' article, that in publishing the blogs he is addressing "the news industry's biggest problem: an inability to connect with the communities it covers."

That's worth rereading...a newspaper with an "inability to connect with the communities it covers." How, one might ask, does a newspaper cover a community it doesn't connect with?

In the new digital age, the "inability" is the direct result of falling newspaper revenues leading to newsroom cuts. So newspapers are turning to free, on-line (and amateur) reporting.

In return, the news bloggers get additional exposure for their sites and keep the rights to their material. According to the Times story, they also get press credentials (or legitimacy through access to sources) and advice on how to increase traffic to their sites.

In the short run, the papers' principal obligation is maintaining quality control and the integrity of what they print.

In the long run, this latest development is simply a stopgap until the screen technology matches the portability and former profitability of newspapers and drives "old media" out of business.

At the rate newspapers are losing readers and revenue, "the long run" should be no longer than five years.