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The news as conversation: bloggers changed the relationship between the public the press
Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | Sun, Nov. 21, 2004 | Jeff Jarvis

Posted on 11/21/2004 2:26:24 PM PST by rface

In keeping the media on their toes, bloggers have changed the relationship between the public and those who provide the news.

With the election over, some have speculated - or perhaps hoped - that bloggers would fade away like a canceled reality show.

No such luck, folks. We're here to stay.

Blogging - or what I like to call, more broadly, citizens' media - is simply the product of history's easiest publishing tool connected to history's best distribution network, the Internet. Yet because it allows anyone to publish to the world, it changes the fundamental relationship of citizens and media, politics, government, marketing, academe and the world. Citizens' media give the people a voice and power and, most important, control. And once we have it, we won't let it go.

The impact of citizens' media is felt first on big media:

What bloggers did to Dan Rather - when they deflated his supposed scoop regarding President Bush's National Guard service - they can do to any news organization. In the words of blogger Ken Layne: "We can fact-check your... ."

The wise reporter (as opposed to the clueless Rather) will thank bloggers for their help in getting at the truth. Journalists will come to realize that news isn't finished and fish-wrap once it's printed or broadcast. Instead, that's when citizens can add facts, questions, corrections and perspective. That's when news becomes a conversation.

Big media will also recognize that in bloggers they can find the diverse voices and viewpoints they have supposedly wanted to attract for years. Bloggers are getting quoted in big media (imagine my surprise on election night when I heard Aaron Brown on CNN read a blog post of mine about taking a post-vote peace pledge); we're getting invited on TV shows; we're writing articles such as this.

Bloggers will provide competition to media as some of them begin to make money (even my 12-year-old son's blog earns him considerably more from Google ads than his miserly allowance) and as they show big media how to create content at a much lower cost. That is happening now with blogs and is coming to audio and video with the advent of podcasting (shows that anyone can make on a PC, intended to be heard on MP3 players) and vlogging (that is, video blogging). Anyone can create content. Anyone can interact with it. Anywhere. Anytime. That is the future of media.

But bloggers will not replace big media. It's a symbiotic relationship. Bloggers will dog news media and shame them into covering stories. They will demand transparency from journalists. And they will speed up the news (after the election, blogs quickly spread, and then just as swiftly started debating and debunking, reports of voting irregularities). But bloggers also feed on the news that journalists gather. As Tom Curley, president of the Associated Press, said to the Online News Association this month: "The expanding blogosphere is indeed huge, but the bloggers need a baseline of facts and professional analysis on which to base their work... . Imagine Drudge without somebody to link to, or wonkette without somebody to poke fun at."

In politics, you can bet that the influence of citizens' media will grow. On a national level, blogs and Meetups have proved to be phenomenal tools for fund-raising and organizing. At a recent event for the Week magazine in New York, political columnist Dick Morris congratulated former Howard Dean campaign head Joe Trippi for accomplishing what Congress had failed to do: campaign finance reform. The Dean campaign unlocked millions from citizens to compete with the clout of millions from special interests.

But I believe the real and lasting political impact of citizens' media will be felt locally, as town and state candidates use these tools to raise money, and get supporters out on the stump, and talk with voters. I don't know my state and county officials; do you know yours? A simple blog will help turn a faceless local pol into a neighbor and a campaign into a conversation.

Nationally and locally, candidates will continue to use blogs to get their messages to voters - bypassing the old gatekeepers of the news media. When enough candidates are elected because of blogs, we'll find this new medium creeping into government, too. I recently sent letters to my senator and congressman protesting the Federal Communications Commission's censorship of TV, and I waited weeks to get back letters explaining their positions. How much more efficient, informative and interactive it would be for those lawmakers to post their stands and responses on blogs for all their voters to see.

And I believe we will force government agencies, local and national, to use the tools of citizens' media and the Internet to keep constituents informed. Shouldn't we expect the same customer service of our government that we get from a consumer brand's Web site?

In business, marketers are keenly interested in citizens' media. I've spoken with major advertisers and agencies that understand this is a new, targeted and inexpensive way to reach audiences - and more important, to build new, two-way relationships with customers. The wise brand listens to what customers are saying in blogs and forums - and then responds. As the four authors of the seminal work on citizens' media, The Cluetrain Manifesto, decreed: "Markets are conversations."

It doesn't end there. I've sat in university classes where students and professors experiment with these tools to change the way they communicate and learn.

And if you want to see the real revolution in citizens' media, don't look at America. Look at Iran, where one man named Hossein Derakhshan at Hoder.com gave birth to a Web log revolution among hundreds of thousands of young Iranians, who are challenging their government online. Look at Iraq, where scores of bloggers - Iraqi citizens and American soldiers - are telling the stories that news media aren't telling. Look at China, where Web logs are beginning to gain strength. In these nations, the tools of citizens' media are truly challenging the powerful.

Bloggers are often accused of blog triumphalism, and I can certainly be indicted on that charge. I don't mean to say that blogs are the all-virtuous. As with all human endeavors, they are marked by mistakes, ego, pettiness and peculiarity.

But hear what's happening: In this interactive age, news, politics, government and markets must all become conversations. Web logs are just leading the way.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jeff Jarvis blogs at www.buzzmachine.com. He is former television critic for TV Guide and People and was creator of Entertainment Weekly. He is now president and creative director of Advance.net.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: newmedia; rathergate

1 posted on 11/21/2004 2:26:25 PM PST by rface
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To: rface

There's a whole new language and culture being created -- that never was possible before. The distinguishing characteristic is interactive writing/reading/thinking. That is, we're changing, creating, being created, evolving in this participation. Formerly, language was primarily used, as were many forums and behaviors, to establish dominance and hierarchy -- which is what most of the old institutions including the broadcast media still does. So they bring out the experts (which you notice they are even doing less and less because they don't want to share that power with anyone else), use language in a controlling, manipulative manner, and suppress all the other voices but their own (while screaming to high heavens about the imaginary violations of civil liberties under the Patriot Act).

So a few, usually the best, are forced to seek, create and participate in alternative media -- but those few are the creative vanguard of society -- while the mainstream media consolidates its dwindling base of dysfunctional, entitled audience who still are susceptible to the thinking and leadership of demagogues. These are your Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons, liberal leaders, media, public employee unions, etc.

It's no longer news that "news" has morphed into entertainment to maintain their following. However, if one can and has the disposition to, interactive communications are much more engaging and stimulating, as we all recognize (almost to the point of being addicting). But beyond being just another choice or channel, it has evolved into the clarity of communications that have as a premise the underlining egalitarianism of such writing. That is, we are not writing down -- or up, but to peers. This is unlike the writing/communications of the past, which has as its purpose to subjugate and prove one's superiority to others (which is why a lot of them have nothing to say anymore but to call their audience idiots and morons), which is distinctive of the political/media rants about how the president and everybody else should recognize their superiority -- while never demonstrating any such virtues and talents as an example.

This post is important news that really is the big news happening -- that the broadcast/mainstream/traditional media/institutions cannot even register. But that is the information of these times worth knowing. We've read/heard a lifetime of rants (talking to themselves) and that is the impression one is struck with now after reading authentic communications as are now possible and commonplace on such forums as these.


2 posted on 11/21/2004 4:18:36 PM PST by MikeHu
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To: MikeHu

The information is now flowing, especially with the technological upgrades that link web sites automatically. The MSM cannot stop it. I look forward to to the day when Liberal Media is bankrupted financially, which will match its moral bankruptcy.


3 posted on 11/21/2004 6:23:17 PM PST by LC1951
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