cheese it, the cops!

gbd (crispy)

so were there bloggers involved in the panel?  i also think that the blogosphere has pretty decent self-correcting mechanisms. one example is big media blog which consists of open threads about many of the most-read blogs, in which people often post corrections. and is there a crisis? like what have been some of the terrible results of unchecked blogging?

gbd (zehr)

the big austin blog panel came and went without much ado. interesting sort of consensus reached: blogs will supplement, augment and be a thorn in the side of mainstream media. this certainly is the case now, and will be more so going forward. this is a good thing.

also discussed audience. a blogger rarely has a broad audience. in fact, blogs by nature tend toward a rather specific audience.

for these reasons, i'm quite curious now as to how blogs and mainstream media will interact in the future. can blogs play to a larger, mainstream audience? will a larger, mainstream audience even exist for traditional publications to write to, or will blogs lead us toward more specificity?

but the one question no one could answer is how accountability and credibility can be judged in the blogosphere. peer-to-peer interactions will solve most of these problems, but if blogs are to somehow replace traditional media, there will need to be some sort of structure that ensures accountability and reliability (e.g. truth). Those standards don't always work with mainstream media now, but those standards at least exist. From whence do the come for blogs, and do we even want that type of structure?

gbd (crispy)

i don't know. i think you're trapped in a "big journalism" model of credibility etc. to me there's no reason one shouldn't be able to blog anonymously, and many reasons why one might want to. in fact there are anonymous blogs of soldiers or whistle-blowers etc (look at this anonymous blog dedicated to disseminating images of abuse of prisoners and non-combatants in iraq, or crisis pictures . check out this story about using anonymous blogs to overcome the info squeeze in nepal or this one about what happens to non-anonymous bloggers in iran).  but a blog is not a magazine: it's a publicly-accessible diary. and really as with many ways of participating in the internet, identities can't really be checked. but that is a factor in how free-wheeling the discourse is. several bloggers believe they have been fired for blogging (or this). most bloggers don't have fact-checkers or a squad of reporters, though well-read blogs get pretty damn quickly corrected and re-corrrected.

grassroots journalism (zehr)

dan gillmor, formerly of the san jose mercury news, has a great new gig and push for grassroots journalism (aka citizens' journalism). i've admired his work at the merc for some time and admire his efforts here all the more. of course, it's always nice to have someone like pierre omidyar behind you.

also, check out gillmor's thoughts on objectivity here.

put your name on it (dan zehr)

the american-statesman does publish blogs for sports and politics. essentially, it's a mid-day report that seems to try to capitalize more on the blog trend than anything. that said, some of the reporters have mentioned that responses generated by blog entries have changed stories. and i believe using blogs as a source of information can be extremely useful, if handled properly.

the problem with that and expecting blogs to become a broader news delivery device is the fact the lack of any disclosure requirements. most disturbing, as erin suggested in an earlier comment, no names. this might help explain why blogs have become especially widespread in op-ed. i'd guess that the most-often read op-ed blogs have names on them. but a structure that could establish some basic trust and credibility (of which names are the most basic example) would be absolutely necessary.

now there are some who'd argue the blogosphere would work this out. that a large number of people blogging, even if anonymous or only partially identified, would eventually ferret out the truth of a matter. first of all, i disagree that would happen. but even if it did on a regular basis, i would be even more disturbed by the lack of safeguards for the one time bloggers didn't lead to the right conclusion.

and that's why i think so many more people are comfortable with it for op-eds. here's a chance to get a broad range of opinions (and in virtually every medium), weigh them against one another and come up with you believe. and as adam s mentioned in one of his comments earlier, that all can be linked to the news/story/rumor/report on which the argument relies. i'd like to see this ratchet up all the more.

at what point do you think some of the laggards catch up? when do think we'll see Tom Friedman's blog (assuming he doesn't already have one i don't know about)?

also, would full disclosure (name, etc.) reduce blog activity, or at least drastically slow its growth?

gbd (crispy)

right. i don't think a blog is going to help you much with a story like that.
does the american-statesman publish or use blogs?
one thing i can say with certainty. blogging is transforming opinion journalism (which is where i work) very quickly. many people who used to just write op-ed (including me) are blogging. already a goodly percentage of op-ed columns emerge from blog entries or blog controversies. i myself  now usually think about what entry i should turn into a column this week. ann coulter is getting killed today on every liberal blog because colmes supposedly silenced her on fox news. (everyone's got the video .) so now the blog, the television, the column are all in a dialogue. the pace and intensity and contact in opinion journalism are ratcheting up quick.

gbd (zehr)

i could live with variable standards, but only if those standards are published. what would be ideal is a format that allows a reporter to explain how/why they reported a story. there would need to be some protection of sources, for example, but it would be more enlightening for all readers. and this is a point where blogs and other new technological advances could be especially helpful.

i'll create a hypothetical situation: suppose i get an independent report about the market share held by the world's largest computer manufacturers (which i do on a quarterly basis). often, the companies offer various spins and interpretations of the numbers. company x says it shipped the most units, and that best shows its hold on the market. company y says it made more in sales, and that's the real point.

so let's say i write blog entries as i'm reporting (given the proprietary nature of news, these likely would not be published until after the story is posted). my first entry mentions that i've received these numbers, perhaps with a link to the data. i then mention my plan to call companies x, y and z to get their feedback. finally, i note that i'll call the independent analyst to get his interpretation of the data. updates could provide the themes i'm seeing as they develop and change with each input, along with the on-the-record information coming in from each source.

so i put all this in a blog, or on a web page hyperlinked from the story. this, to me, provides one of the broadest disclosures of both information and process. essentially, readers could see the raw data for themselves -- but they could also see and appraise my reporting and, more important, how i filter and interpret information.

i'm kind of going at this on the fly, so bear with me if you see problems (and please point them out). but as i see it, a blog form for this would allow people to discuss their concerns and viewpoints not only on the data but on my interpretation thereof.

a few problems: 1) as nice as it would be to keep this current, so someone could point out an obvious misstep of which i'm ignorant, it wouldn't be possible under the competitive terms of journalism. 2) would i really have the time and resources as a journalist to consider each incoming criticism and judge its legitimacy, while continuing to try to track down news? 3) i still remain the final arbiter on how i present the story (blog feedback could address this issue).

the point is, i think it's becoming more important for journalists to come clean on their reporting and writing processes, especially as people become increasingly skeptical of journalists (and rightly so). unfortunately, i wouldn't expect to see that to happen anytime soon.

gbd (crispy)

overall, i think these are good standards, though you should maybe have a variety of organizations with a variety of standards (preferably explicitly stated). but i think in a general sense "the way a news story  is crafted" is up for grabs: it's relative to some extent to medium: even the hyperlink alone is a transformation.

i think the biggest bloggers are making money on advertising, though i don't really know how much (anybody got any info on this? and how do i cash in? forget the cash. send marijuana ). and i think that more and more advertising is migrating to the web. that's certainly the basic source of newspaper revenue anyway. i hope newspapers survive. but to the extent that they migrate to the web, they'll be transformed, i think, kind of top to bottom. for example, there's no limit to how much searchable research detail you could post to bolster some assertion. the liquidity of sites into one another by link and cut and paste begins to reduce brand names as the source of legitimacy. articles can be continually revised after their publication. etc.

great blog debate (crispy)

well i'd repeat that mainstream news organizations are creating news in blog form. with remarkable speed it's changing the actual format of news on the web in mainstream outlets. in a way this is a key moment because the blog is a web-based and web-appropriate form, and rather than merely presenting print content on the web.

then also it has driven mainstream news organizations to cover certain stories in certain ways. that's a major effect, and i suspect will be much more pronounced as time goes on. one model might be open-source software. if you've got thousands of people working on something, you can get better results. wikipedia  is also a good model: it has already far surpassed britannica in content because it has thousands of voluntary contributors.

of course it doesn't work quite that well with blogs maybe, cause you're going to have to wade through worlds of potential crap. but also the blogosphere has directionality, etc, movement toward or away from particular treatments of particular topics.

The great weblog debate part II

as crispin mentioned earlier, i'm on a panel dedicated to blogs' impact on news. i write for the austin american-statesman, and in my admittedly biased position I see virtually no impact on news from blogs.

more than anything, it seems blogs have become watchdogs for the media (and corporate america, for that matter). ask dan rather whether he thinks someone was watching over his shoulder. that doesn't change how i do my job, and it really shouldn't change how any other journalist does, either. hell, after jayson blair i'd like to hope reporters are taking their responsibilities a bit more seriously (though i know the writers that don't remain).

to a lesser degree, i see blogs shaping news by shaping consumer demand. the impact of this has been slight at best. people still go to established brands (e.g. NYTimes) and portals that carry established brands (e.g. Yahoo!) for their dose of news.

other than those two purposes, i see blogs having virtually no impact on mainstream news. i read blogs and consider them as any other source: personal; one-sided; and in need of confirmation and context. but that's the beauty of blogs: that they are personal and instantaneous, and confirmation, context and the other side grow organically in blog-world. that growth is far too early on the evolutionary chain to be taken seriously as news.

i'm certain others disagree. tell me why i'm wrong.

also, check out crispin's intial great weblog debate post and the subsequent comments.

z

the great weblog debate

i'm going to start a conversation on blogs in relation to mainstream media on this page with dan zehr. dan's an old student of mine from  penn state harrisburg and a reporter at the austin american-statesman. he's participating in a panel on blogging on mar 4 and thought maybe an actual blog would be a good place to think about this.

here's a question that's been nibbling at me. virtually every newspaper and magazine site has blogs. in fact, they're obviously trying to shift some of their operations into the blogosphere as they feel for where the money and the readership may eventually be. this seems only responsible, and some of these (the national review corner  springs to mind) are very widely read and pretty damn good. but i personally don't think it's a worthwhile or honest practice, overall. what i like about blogs is precisely the fact that it's someone talking, unedited, in her own voice on her own behalf. to me a blog edited by the washpost editorial staff isn't a blog at all but a simulation. and i think that in the long run what people like about blogs will draw them away from these sites. the national review is one thing. but the "blogs" of the washpost or time magazine or whatver in the long run will be exactly as safe as the publications themselves. they *are* the publications themselves, i.e. not blogs.