Posted on 04/05/2006 11:47:03 AM PDT by abb
CHICAGO (AFP) - With a new blog created every second, some media futurists have predicted that "citizen journalists" will be producing half of the world's news by 2021.
A number of newspapers are trying to cash in on the trend by creating online venues where bloggers can share local news and opinions.
"It really enforces your leadership in the community as the voice of the community," said Fran Wills, vice president of interactive and product development for the Denver Newspaper Agency, which publishes The Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News.
The websites have turned into places where people can share the kind of news that would not fit into a larger local paper like church bake sales or neighborhood chili contests, Wills said Sunday at the Nexpo newspaper technology convention in Chicago.
And they are drawing in readers and advertisers by focusing on individual neighborhoods instead of a large metropolis.
Half of the registered users at Denver's yourhub.com don't read the Post or Rocky Mountain News and 40 to 50 percent of the website's advertisers are new as well, Wills said.
Bringing in new readers and advertisers is critical for American newspapers which have seen a steady decline in readership and a loss of classified ad revenue to websites like eBay which offer free posting.
Just 51.6 percent of American adults read a daily newspaper in 2005, down from 58.6 percent in 1998 when the Internet started to boom according to the Newspaper Association of America.
In the heyday of the 1960's 80 percent of Americans read the paper.
But perhaps more worrisome is that newspapers are failing to attract young readers and those readers often don't start reading the paper as they get older. Less than 40 percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 read daily newspapers in 2005.
A recent study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism said newspapers face "a seismic transformation in what and how people learn about the world around them."
"Power is moving away from journalists as gatekeepers over what the public knows," the report said.
"Audiences are moving from old media such as television or newsprint to new media online."
Newspaper-driven blogospheres can also help shape the way that news is gathered, Kyle Poplin, executive editor of South Carolina's Bluffton Today, said at the Nexpo conference.
Poplin launched a free tabloid in the town of 18,000 people a year ago. Since more than half the people who live in Bluffton have moved there in the past five years "we want to introduce people to each other," Poplin said.
The paper created a website with the aim of giving everyone in town a blog and serving as a community notice board.
The high school principal uses it to send messages to parents. Dog lovers use it to hold informal beauty contests.
And bloggers managed to kick up such a fuss over what they saw as a dangerous intersection that city officials ended up installing a stoplight.
"The system we have is the readers tell us what's important and we don't miss a lot of stories," Poplin said. "We think it works because it takes readers seriously."
An initial concern with launching the blog was that readers would post inaccurate or unfair stories. But the bloggers tend to police each other, Poplin said, and the paper has only had to ban one reader for creating inappropriate posts.
While both papers rely on the town's bloggers for news tips - and sometimes even for photos - neither Poplin nor Wills expect the bloggers to ever replace professional journalists.
"When push comes to shove and there's controversy on a subject (readers) really look for what reputable sources say," Wills said.
That number would be higher if papers were written in Spanish......
sarc//off
You can't enforce what you don't already have.
That's MSM's specialty! Can't have bloggers interfering.
The media doesn't get it.
Why go to an "establishment" newspaper blog when the mass media has been lying to us for decades anyway?
More idiotorials from libs? No thanks.
You joke but Houston has begun running some articles in Spanish in the daily paper.
Your right. Mike Barnicle was on Imus this morning decrying the rise of blogs. He was upset that everyone has a voice and has an opinion they can express. They were talking about John Kerry's demands at hotels thats going around on the blogs. Of course, Barnicle hated bloggers having a say about important people like I suppose him and Kerry. Barnicle is an A$$.
They were asleep while Jim Robinson already beat them to it.
What is an "unfair" blog story in comparison to how the media presents ANY argument?
I always hated the term "citizen journalist". Its as if a "real" journalist owes no citizenship to anyone, but is in an exclusive class all to themselves. They're not just plain ol' people with degrees in journalism, but they're "journalists", and a non-degreed person must bear the distinction of not being in the club.
What's more, I don't mind debate over the particulars (or even just conversations) but when basic realities (such as Bush winning the election) are still being disputed by the Left, I have ZERO interest in reading their blather in a blog.
They like their ivory tower. It costs a lot to maintain.
And don't get any ideas about running your own virtual "printing press" just because computers made the printing press obsolete.
The despots don't like losing control on the minds of the public.
All this will do, is end up with people only reading the news they want to hear...whether accurate or not.
It is going to be very easy to manipulate people in the future.
Like the four blind men trying to describe the elephant by feeling it, they get the parts, but do not understand the gestalt it forms.
They know it's got something to do with the internet, and something to do with citizens writing, linking, and interacting... and somehow, it's eating their lunch, ridiculing their institutions, and scooping them, all at the same time.
...but they still don't get it...
Hoe, check out this article and thread. This guy sorta, kinda gets it a little bit. LOL, maybe he's identified the elephant's tusk....
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1609732/posts
Oh, and here's another one. I couldn't figure out how to post it since wired.com won't let us...
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/media/0,70583-0.html?tw=wn_index_1
"Why would I sit through all of that if I can get what I like for free online, listen to it on my own time and not be guilted for weeks into giving money?"
My wife used to be a fan of public TV when it carried some of the old shows she liked, but as they dropped more & more good content, and drubbed her more & more for money, she finally quit watching. You'd think they'd learn.
It's already happened. People banned. Guest bloggers asked to leave. The monopoly will not be questioned!!!
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