News from the users’ perspective

By Michael Fraase

Wednesday, 26 November 2008 08:09PM CST

Section: Media

Making sausageRead Amy Webb’s take on the most recent journalism snarkfeast. Then read this New York Observer piece by John Koblin on the state of corporate media in the United States and pseudo profile of journalist, educator, and media critic Jeff Jarvis. Then read Jarvis’s clarification, where he corrects the factual errors in Koblin’s article. Finally, take a gander at Dave Winer’s criticism of Jarvis’s traditionalism.

Got all that?

Any question that US corporate media is beyond serious decline? On the darkest days, beyond even thinking about salvaging? Winer’s correct when he writes that “the point of view of news that’s relevant: the point of view of the user of news.” Where will we get accurate news in the future? Who’s going to pay for the expensive investigative, enterprise, and beat reporting that we so desperately need now more than ever? Here’s a hint: it’s not going to be advertisers.

In a follow-up, Winer clarifies the point of view bit, by extending the points of view that matter to people with news and people who want news. This is a programmer’s point of view, and certainly valid, but likely hard for non-programmers (or those who haven’t worked closely with programmers) to understand. Boiled down to a nut graf, Winer’s point to traditional media outlets is really quite simple: give us—the users of news—unfettered and complete access to your sources.

Winer has thought deeply about this for two decades and he’s consistently been on to something important and revelatory about the future of news media. It’s past time to convene the conference Winer proposes: a conference of news users to state their use cases directly to the reporters, editors, and publishers.

For a clue about the future of news, take a look at what my friend Griff Wigley is doing with Locally Grown, a place-centric weblog for the town of Northfield, MN. Or what Lisa Williams is doing with Placeblogger, an aggregator of place-centric weblogs. Hyperlocal and hyperrelevant. Or what corporate publishing exile Joel Kramer is doing with MinnPost.com, a non-profit, online-only, professional journalism enterprise covering the state of Minnesota. What I want is those kinds of outlets for my neighborhood, my city, my state, my nation, my continent, my hemisphere, and my planet. Let’s get going.

Permalink | (0) Trackbacks | (0) Comments