What Dan Gillmor has to say about media/journalism, 07/06/04, Kieran's blog

June 07, 2004

What Dan Gillmor has to say about media/journalism

Follow-up to What David Weinberger has to say about blogging/communication/truth from Kieran's blog

Same as previous post, a mix of quotes from Dan Gillmor and my thoughts from BlogTalk last year:

Dan Gillmor

Journalism's new world

Ubiquitous networks
Powerful new tools for reporting
Anyone can publish….

Convertence
Old Media -> New Media -> We Media
Making the news is now possible for anyone.

Yes, some weblogs are journalism, no some are not. Who cares!

Blogs augment traditional journalism and are their own form. A world full of stringers (freelancers)
We all stand on each others shoulders, we learn from reading other peoples writings.
Blogs can break news and keep issues alive.

Trent Lott's downfall! He was a powerful politician who gave a speech at a party for a going away politician who had a racist past.
Trent Lott basically said that he wished this racist politician should have been President! Mainstream news glossed over it and ignored it.
However, a lot of bloggers really grabbed hold of this and eventually the pressure ended up forcing him out of power. Power to the poeple!

Journalism has been a lecture, take it or leave it. A lot of people are leaving it :)
Occasionally you might send a letter to the editor, but rarely, there is no feedback.
But now we feedback and "We can fact-check your ass"....and we will let you know if you get it wrong online.

Founding principle: My readers know more than I do. This is not a threat, it is an opportunity to learn.

Real time feedback can affect people right in the middle of a meeting, fact checking and information gathering from other people can instantly change your perspective on a speaker at a conference for instance. You can't lie any more?

The Self-Assembling Newsroom

Even traditional news organisations are starting to cotton and are asking for phone images from the latest news events

What is true? Not everything…but at least we are working out the truth faster that we could before

You learn a lot more from people who think you're wrong than people who think you're right

Concentration of media is a danger. Fewer voices, vanilla journalism. However, still needed for investigative or war journalism?

OhMyNews, Korean news website helped get new Korean President elected and he gave his first interview to them, not the 80% readership 4 big papers.

Reporters are taking donations to help them investigate important issues, if you are interested in a topic, someone will go and investigate it.

How Hollywood sees the internet: They believe everything should be owned by someone. Potentially very detrimental
Let's hope we don't need permission to publish!!