fillngGaps.opml

Citizen Journalism, Day 1: Fillng gaps
  Betsy Devine, is Jimmy olson here.
    stumbled into a story about phone jamming in NH, where I'm from. Blog about it every now and then. Kept being interested while the majors were not.
    When you're Jimmy Olson, you can live with a story. When you're having dinner, at the car dealership. I would encourage you to turn on the enthusiasts.
    Jack Abramof is a disgraced lobbyists. Tom DeLay is a disgraced legislator. ... those are the actors here. Back in 2002 two of Jack A's indian tribes kindly sent $5k each to the NH GOP. Same with Tom DeLay. Thjis got sent to D.C., which went to Idaho. Then all the NH democratic phones were jammed by calls from Idaho.
    The major press treated this as a tiny NH story. Even though hundreds of calls came to the white house. which cleared the effort.
    Betsy has been following this since 2003.
    Made lists of who did what to whom.
    On sunday there was another little story in the WaPo. NE chair for Bush's campaign, james Tobin... getting money in maine... other person, sommers, gave surprise testimony in 2006 that in 2002 the phone jamming thing happened. All ties together.
  Dan: Betsy is doing some of the more serious reporting on this story. If you care about something deeply, go after it. Now bringing up Lisa to talk about a new project.
  Lisa Williams: Betsy's work was not derivative. She was actually at the trial.
    collecting local blogs for newscribblers.net. Want to open up the conversation to more than the usual suspects. what happens when you take a look at the broad view of what they're doing, and how often they're doing it. they're wonderful and hilarious and they're sharing it with everybody.
  Dan: Next speaker... one of the touchstones of my career. mentored me, gave me a push or pull at just the right times. this is Tom Stites. Known forever by now. Really one of the most thoughtful people about journalism, its meaning and importance. gave a speech at the mediagiraffe (?) conference. set of a conversation of the best kind about J and democracy and informed citizenry, which is what we care about in the end. We'll have a conversation about how we get back to the idea of J for everybody, rather than just who can afford to advertise in the boston globe.
  Tom Stites:
    My stupid pet trick act... (with the audio thingies, tangled with glasses).
    Worked with Dan, NYT, KC Times... have been in the margins of this group. Watched with fascination, not taken part as a blogger, yet.
    thing that strikes me most deeply about dan's thought is its humility. 'the idea that his readers know more than him is relatively rare. Not commonly held in newsrooms. Dan has a strong and healthy ego, and is able to step back. he is really strong with me now.
    Dan runs a center for citizen journalism. Lt's talk about the word citizen. It has many layers of meaning. The political meaning of the work that goes on this room, for example, as it applies to power. How much do we have, how much do we want, how do we use it? Keep this in our minds as we have the conversation.
    I am in the path of Neil Postman. Concept that the medium is the metaphor, rather than the message. A metaphor for the way we think. The government of the U.S. is based on literate thinking. The written word excites reason and thought and image media bypass critical thought. Which is why the manipulators are so good.
    The word "reader" has fallen on hard times. I am here with this understanding. Jounalism is not just what editors write, but what we can take part in.
    I care deeply about democracy. If we don't care about quality journalism, we don't care about democracy. What can we do to engage lote of people, and market penetration, that would be the ezuivalent of a weekly in a rural setting, or facebook in the college setting. these are definable communities.
    To Lisa: what can we do to get more people engaged?
    How do we get more and more quality journalism to them through digital media?
    There is a speech, on Dan's blog, under Recent Comments. there are numbers that dissect the loss of readers from the daily newspapers.
    Asked them to cut the readership change data by household income rather than educational attainment. Among upper middle class folks there is a belief that these are the same, but they are not.
    Many degreed people work for hourly wages.
    Numbers. Between 98 and 04, if you lived in a 50-75K household, more people read newspapers in 04 than in 98. People who make 75K and up, modest decline. But those surveys didn't inquire about online reading.
    From 40 to 35%. Similar falloff of more than 25%. Less access to quality reporting.
    Not many sources of quality reporting.
    TV does present some quality or serious reporting. Based on verified fact and passed thorugh mature pro judgement, had integrity, engages readers, appeals to their capacity for reason. this is the info that people need to make good life and citizenship decisions.
    The base of decision sources have been shrinking. this discards them as citizens.
    What they have left is TV, which manipulates their opinion. This is a bifurcation by class.
    Let's look beyond hyperlocal, carefully presented journalism.
    How do we move emergijng media forward to where it can be helpful to people in a growing democracy.
  Dan: Tom's speech is linked at the conference wiki as well.
  Dan Kennedy: One thing that strikes me is an old anecdote about Rupert Murdoch. years ago he had greatly succeeded in expanding the readership of the NY Post, but advertising didn't follow. (may be apocryphal) What would it take to make people buy ads. Answer: "Rupert, your readers are our shoplifters." That said, what do you do to attract readers of the NY post, Boston herald. TV. What does it say and how does it help us get to what you want?
  Tom Stites: five tabloids left, disregarding the non-tabloidesque newsday. the need is all the greater. The good old days weren't all that good. Louisville, DesMoine had big muscular papers that served everybody. Looked at the pages of the paper in Anne Arundel County... they had a local columnist answering questions. How do I get rid of aluminum siding and put up vinyl? this is relevant to locals. Can yoiu find that in the Globe?
  Robert Cox, pres of media bloggers association. interested in comment about serious reporting... mature professional judgement. As for what can you do, we defend bloggers who are being sued. How do you keep from getting sued in the first place? How do we come up with an editorial policy that members can adopt, that would feed into a review process. The goal is to both prevent lawsuits and move bloggers toward a practical ethical policy. On each blog is a pointer to the organization. The option will be for the reader to turn to a panel of experts, issue a finding... Need to draft a sound policy. Getting input from people in this room. Will talk about this at future conferences. Talk about an ethics hotline, for example.
  Tom: Mature judgement isn't just your own. Betsy Devine... good example.
  Question... how can you not turn to education as the issue? Numbers are distressing. Even among people who do basic reading? In a world run by Xtreme readers. Go back to 70s and 80s, we were talking about changing education, using digital tech. But the internet set us back. The notion was propogated that connection was enough. we threw out tens of years of wisdom that said tech could only be a small part of it. Now that we have all kinds of interactive possibilities, the people using Web 2.0 tools are also trivializing its use. Like to see a turn back to the educational challenge that was left behind.
  Tom: i don't think people have stopped reading. Do find data that seem to show that across the board, peoploe read a lot. Dn't be as classist as the aprocyphal store exec. Mass market paperback sales are up and up. They ignore papers because they've ceased to be relevant. the convenience store in Worchester, which is still there... is selling lottery tickets where newspapers used to be sold by the ton. The papers aren't being useful. And neither are we. We need to hold the vinyl siding customers in our hearts the way we hold the other people in this room. Two things. One has to do with content, mattering beyond the local.
  Bessy Morris, from berkeley. Two things. one is distinction of citizenship as a concept. the other is commiunity. language of relationship.l currency of engagement of ideas and choices. who I trust. where I get ideas from. Very easy to relate to other people like myself. If I want to engage the neighborhood. Let go of the idea that every male household member gets to interact with the marketplace while others do the actual work. How do we reach them? tools from international dev worik. Start with the motherk, or whoever cares the most. Music and radio are widespread. So how do the hyperliterate people, with serious book collection, get down with people whose interests are different, and use different media.
  Tom: the young man from poland was saying that broadband was rare in some parts of the world. goes for here too. penetration is getting deeper and deeper. we are tecnologically equipped to make a huge contribution, using the level of broadband penetration that we have now... New conversation, to get practical, does anybody in the room know people or organizations that are moving to use this technology base to move on the local level...
  Mark Cohen, state legislator, writes for phillyblog. a model worth studying. It doesn't have professionally mediated jounalism, but is being increasingly used by newspapers as a source. also has many attributes described in the Maryland newspaper. Which neighborhood is best? Who is the best vet? the best builder? IN the next few years it will pass the philly daily news in total readership.
  __: if we agree that good info is critical to an engaged citizenry it only seems logical to me that we'd want to move toward public funding of personal media. In the U.K . has more money going into public media, into centers for training...
  Tom: examples?
  __: This would be a foundational block, just like one for smart legal ideas. things like that are crucial.
  __: on French national radio. Were looking for constructive ideas. such as giving money to the public. To my surprise, they accepted. With no experience, i can post a show,... more about arts and culture than local news, but... we try to findl stuff that would be both interesting and likely to create critical mass, and helpful as well.
  Tom: It doesn't need to be deep. there are lots of ways to learn. Comic books? Maybe.
  __: Re: the Pew study... the candy store was nice, but... where young people are meeting every day are at MySpace of FaceBook. Rather than ignore the vernacular, embrace the video and audio. On the other hand yoiu have poland, with no free newspapers, forming a democracy.
  Tom: If you want to reach people, go to where they already are. then introduce them to stuff.
  Tish Greir, corante... was at blogher. talking to emily McCann, did Katrina relief. She and a partner starting a site called motherhood, tackling of political issues. These women are online a lot. they're a big group, a real force. More interested in political issues.
  ___: offer two possibilities. Joan Blades, founder of MoveOn, is doing MomsRising.org. group called oneeconomy.org, publishes beehive.org, in 5 languages. Info about health care, language, literacy, targeted to working people, low income, immigrant.. widely used, yet not well known, to us anyway. 'they have a philly portal. San jose. beehive.org. Moving to a 24-hour portal. Not sure about political discourse.
  Lisa: didn't consider how being a mother plays into this. didn't think about it until now that one of my outreach tools is my own kids. Live next to a large public housing project. Started bringing my kids. Got readers and contributors through the kids calendar.
  tom: public funding. Jay rosen's experiment. got $10k to seed an entry point to this idea. Significant potential for a real door opening here. But when people write checks they become gatekeepers to who gets the power. There is a limit to what volunteers can do. Money will change the landscsape. Start thinking about that. How to interact in a productive way.