A little over a year ago, I wrote a post about the future of we media. In it, I stated that many of us are joining the ranks of main stream media with regular frequency. What began as a blog started to share information, learn, publicize our business and skills, has provided a bridge to the pages of known publications.
The conversation that ensured saw the participation of experienced journalist Bruno Giussani, with a very in depth comment that I'd like to share, slightly edited, here:
Thanks for the the reminder of theabsurd way established media looked at blogs just 5 years ago. I agree with pretty much everything you wrote. I actually wrotesomething that could fit right into your column back in 1997 already:
"The role of the journalist is changing into a more central figure, amediator. He directs traffic, explores, becomes a facilitator ofdiscussions. His new power will depend on his ability to animate agroup of people, to develop methods and means to enliven the community,to organize information-gathering and use with the participation of themembers of the community."
Truth is, we're in an era of hybridization of media, and that goestwo-ways. Newspapers and magazines and broadcasters have been openingup to everything form blogging to crowdsourcing. Conversely, many blogshave become almost traditional media (in terms of business model andstructure -- take Gawker, or DailyKos, or TalkingPointMemo: they havemore flexibility and smaller overhead, but they're basicallytraditional publishers) and it's telling that of the three examples youmention, David and Steve work for communication firms and John is aconsultant and speaker, i.e., they derive their paycheck from sourcesother than journalism. They do "journalism on the side", includingtheir columns for AdAge etc.
Those are great additions to theconversation, but aren't necessarily great additions to journalism, inparticular to the journalism that a democracy needs to function -- longreporting, researching, travelling, taking risks, exposing corruptionand lies, going up against established powers, etc.
Sure, everybody canmake a long list of examples of bloggers doing some of this work (fromthe Dan Rather story to the AG scandal to local happenings) and asimilarly long list of established media with lots of resourcesscrewing it up (NYT on Iraq, just to mention one). But still the keyquestion remains: how will the necessary journalism be organized and bepaid for in the future? The best journalism on TV today is either paidfor by the public through mandatory fees (BBC) or paid for byphilanthropic and corporate-social-responsibility money (Bill Moyers onPBS): is that the model of the future?
A second caveat is: while all you write applies perfectly to the USmedia landscape, it doesn't necessarily apply to the rest of the world,where media habits, market structures, and roles are different. In manyAfrican countries, the best journalism today is often done by bloggers-- because they have a space for freedom that newspapers don't (it'seasier to shut down a printing plant: read the difficulties AndrewMwenda encountered trying to print his newspaper).
In Europe, newspapers' and magazines' sites dominate the onlinespace and conversation (with the possible exception of Italy, where Beppe Grillohas emerged as a major political force, mostly because television newshas turned into irrelevant political banter and most newspapers aregoing the same way).
In his last post (for a while), Bruno stated he was suspending his blog, because "after more than three years and more than 1000 posts, I no longer find blogging a satisfactory instrument for organizing my thoughts, keeping track of ideas, trends and interesting novelties, and engaging in a conversation with readers and friends."
Interestingly, my response to his comment read (slightly edited to fit this context):
This line in your 1997 article was particularly stimulating to my thought process:
"By redefining the way we think and write, this new structureredefines all of our culture. I agree with New York sociologist NeilPostman that
New technologies alter the structure of our interests: the thingswe think about. They alter the character of our symbols: the things wethink with. And they alter the nature of community: the arena in whichthoughts develop."
We are probably starting to think liquid as PR and social media consultant Geoff Livingston defined it. You ended with:
"So as a journalist what I believe our first and most urgent taskahead is to create the appropriate language to describe - thus tounderstand - the digital revolution. Recognizing that it is not onlyabout microprocessors and fiber optic cable, but above all about brainsconnecting to other brains, about collective intelligence. A human,political and cultural endeavor."
If you think about where you are today vs. where you started from when you began publishing content, you will probably find that you've moved up the hierarchy of needs to self-esteem and, potentially, self-actualization. The new technologies at our disposal have altered the structure of our interests.
They things we think with alter what we can do. Today at SxSWi people are recording podcasts, videos and taking notes to document the event. Potentially, there will be outcomes, things will happen as a result of contributions to the community. Even if you're on Twitter reading the reports and following the links to blog posts, you still have the opportunity to participate in the event and news.
We might be media, but - and it's a big one - we are not journalists. I'm a classically trained linguist with a passion for learning and making ideas happen and deep experience in marketing communications. I took journalism classes, and I probably am a good addition to the conversation. However, I'm not the kind of journalist Bruno describes.
Who is going to pick up the tab for that kind of journalism? That remains very much the open question at the other end of the "paid to write" spectrum. Why it matters should be quite transparent. Or maybe it isn't. What's your take?Â
[image: I met Amy Jo Kim at the Fast Company Community @ Work event]