One of the reasons I love words is because through their history we can find meaning. The history of words is not benign. They tell us about human thinking and society and what we truly mean. We stand on two feet for a reason (evolution) and we say the words “victory” for a reason (linguistic evolution).

With the economy (original greek word oikonomikos meaning: management of the household) being on the tip of everyone’s tongues I thought I’d look into the history of two words that 99% of the people focus on. (Side story: the word “Occupy” has an interesting history – in the 16th century it was a euphemism for sex, causing it to fall from good grace as a polite word).

The word “corporation” derives from corpus, the Latin word for body, or a “body of people.”

The word company has more “friendly” beginnings. Company as in a “companion” is also latin and literally translates to “bread fellow” or somebody you break bread with. Com (together) and “panis” which is latin for bread.

It seems that in the ‘economic’ discussion of the have’s vs. the have-nots we talk about “corporations” being part of the problem. I don’t think it’s a problem that people come together to form entities that make money. The problem is how they regard themselves and how we look at them. They act like corporations when they need to be companies. Who could be against a bunch of people coming together to break bread?

And don’t forget, if you are in the Bay Area you can eat at Credo Restaurant all week and a portion of the revenue will go to Spot.Us. Just ask the staff how you can support Spot.Us through your meal. Today (Monday) is Spot.Us takeover day – so if you’re in the area – come join us for some good food and support Spot.Us at the same time!

I love this question and I’m pumped on finding out what tools and tricks other folks use.

I’ll start with the newest tool that has changed my email experience

Nudgemail

Email can cause more stress than it’s worth, and then I found Nudgemail. If you’re like me – you hate seeing unread emails in your inbox. You’ll open them and find out that this email requires action but you can’t tackle it until next Thursday. If you’re a list-maker like me – you have a choice 1. Leave it unread, starring at you everyday until next Thursday when you can tackle the problem or email it to thursday@nudgemail.com. Next Thursday at 6:30am that email will be re-sent to you. You can email virtually any date/time. 3pm@nudgemail.com, december21@nudgemail.com, etc, etc. I’m willing to admit that email acts as a bit of a to-do list for me. But I refuse to let that mean that email is in charge of my life or should constantly stress me out. Nudgemail gives me control over my inbox. If it’s a problem that I can’t tackle until Tuesday – then tuesday@nudgemail.com takes care of it for now and I can move on to a more urgent matter.

Apple Keyboard Shortcuts

I just got back from visiting my parents and teaching my mom about keyboard shortcuts. Perhaps mentioning keyboard shortcuts is a bit of a yawner for other Carnival of Journalism folk, but it goes without saying – this is a BIG time saver. I’m lucky that I learned to type young (thanks mom) and I’ve picked up the Apple keyboard shutcuts pretty quickly. I love finding new ones too. Do yourself a favor, find a useful one on that list and spend a week making it second nature. I’ve probably increased my productivity a bajillion fold not having to slow down to click from tab to tab, window to window, etc.

In August 2010 I did a post: “Five Tools to Increase Productivity” and it might help to list those here as well. I’ll give short explanations and if you want the full introduction to these tools, check out the link.

The Viddler Interview

I get contacted by students all the time. Journalism professors like to point to Spot.Us and they often assign projects that involved interviewing journalism entrepreneurs or new media models, etc. I try to make myself as available as possible. I also try not to get annoyed that I’m asked some of the same questions all the time. When people ask “where did the idea for Spot.Us” come from – I don’t want to be flippant and just write back in an email “from my head” nor do I want to spend 10 minutes writing out the real story (over and over again). Instead – I respond via Viddler, a YouTube competitor. If you check out my Viddler profile you’ll see I have almost 100 videos. All of them are titled “Answers for XX.” Typing out the answers without shortchanging the students would probably take a minimum of 20 minutes each. Using Viddler it’s closer to 5. The mental relief is also great. So create a second YouTube account or a Viddler account or some other video uploading competitor and use that second account as a way to talk with others who might be asking you long winded questions.

Text Expander

Do you write a lot of emails? Do many of them have the same elements or formats? Do you run an organization and sometimes you need to reach out to various people but you don’t want to mass email people (lame?). Do you write a lot of html and would love some shortcuts? Check out Text Expander. It creates files of text that are at your fingertips just create a short code like “news-orgmail” and when you type it – BAMN instantly the full text that you want to send to news orgs is pasted into your email. You can have as many short coded emails as you want.

Jing

This tool comes via Kara Andrade and Erik Sundelof. Jing is a screencast tool which is incredibly useful if you work with a remote team building and managing a website. If you’ve ever had a phone conversation with a web developer about a bug,  you’ll know that communication is hard. You’ll ask them to get on the computer so they can see what you see. But you are never 100% sure if what you are saying translates. All that goes away with Jing.

xPad

It is as cool as it sounds. The xPad is the ultimate notebook. Do you take notes on your computer? Do you use Microsoft Word to save those notes. If so – please stop reading this right now and slap yourself. Microsoft Word is a horrible way to take notes. It is clunky, big files, slow to open, slow to close and worse yet – doesn’t easily transfer online (people that cut and paste word documents into a  WYSWIG editor are a pet peeve.) For a long time I just had an internal system of using TextEdit (Rich Text Documents). It worked okay. I’d keep one blank document open at all times (note taking) and save important ones. Luckily Joy Mayer, a fellows Missouri Reynolds Fellow told me about xPad.

Rapportive

This little plugin helps you know who you are talking to. If you are like me and you get an email from somebody new one of the first things you do is Google them to get the details. Rapportive does that for you. Right there in your inbox they’ll search for related social media accounts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and more. Forget searching to find out who this person is – it’s already in front of you. Related but not as practical: Gist.

Grease Monkey

Grease Monkey is the script that fathered all scripts. First: If you don’t use Firefox, stop reading this and slap yourself.

If you do use Firefox, are you using it to its full potential? Maybe not. Download Grease Monkey and then search through the seemingly endless add-ons. The important thing here is not to get lost in the sea of possibilities. Instead think about a problem you already have in your browsing experience.

The best explanation can be found in the video below which also has the instructions on how the Carnival of Journalism will continue as I pass the reigns to other hosts. For those that prefer text, keep on reading (but you’ll miss all the jokes I inserted into the video).

When: May 5th at 12pm PST.

Where: Publish on your blog

What: A failure in your life (personal or professional) that has lessons. It must be your failure and you must take responsibility. But this will be a safe space to discuss our failings and what we can learn from them.

The Details

We talk about ‘failure’ a lot in the online journalism community. It can be a bit of a buzzword. “Let’s fail early and fail often” is a motto I personally have adopted.

But the true value of failing is if we can share the lessons learned. We probably do this all the time without knowing it – but rather than try to condense our lessons into 140 characters, let’s create a safe space this month to discuss a failure that others can learn from.

Three rules

1. It must be a project you worked on. Let’s not turn this into a space to point fingers and lay blame on anyone but ourselves.
2. It must be your failing within that project (see above)
3. No apologizing. This is a safe space to discuss failure. In fact, I want there to be a fight at the end for the biggest failure of the lot. That person should be cheered for their honesty, insights and perhaps attempting something that none of us had the cojones to try.

This month’s Carnival of Journalism is in part inspired by Ethan Zuckerman who once discussed “Fail Camp” with me as a great platform to share lessons.

Look, none of us are perfect. Nobody expects everything we do to turn into Pulitzer investigations or multi-billion revenue streams. Everyone fails a little every day and occasionally we fail really big. The question is if we can fail well. One way to accomplish this, I believe, is if we share the failure, get it off our chest and help others avoid it in the future.

So with that – please join me for the Carnival of Fail, the failfest, failapalooza, all you need is fail. #jfail. Have fun with it.

Future Carnival of Journalism Hosts

Hopefully by now we all have a sense of how the Carnival of Journalism works. There is a host. Their job is to come up with an interesting topic and a date everyone will publish on their personal blogs. Everyone sends a link of their post to the host and the host then does a summary of what everyone said and tries to find next month’s host. Along the way – bloggers meet new bloggers, ideas are shared and the community of bloggers feels strengthened and empowered.

I’ve hosted the first four months to get things going.

But this is not a company. There is no ownership. It lives and dies if people take stewardship of it.

So email me: david AT spot DOT us if you want to host next month and let me know what topic you’d like to propose to the group. If you aren’t chosen – have no fear, you can email next month’s host with the same topic. Then both myself and the next host will choose the third month’s host. Following that the three ex-hosters will pick the fourth host. And so on and so forth until we’ve come full circle to 12 hosts.

If that happens…. well. Wow. That would really be a testament to everyone involved and how committed you are to discussing the future of media. We will then wipe the slate clean and start again with a new host. I’ll gladly do a Mardi Gras video #mardiGrasOfJournalism post.

I look forward to this and future Carnvial’s and I want to thank everyone for their time and energy. This has been a truly exciting endeavor and one that I hope continues well into the future.

From the launch of Spot.Us, I’ve always said the following:

• Anyone can tackle the crowdfunded journalism model. In fact, NPR could do it tomorrow and blow me out of the water. It’s just about being transparent and giving up control over how donation money gets spent.
• This model would have more success at the national or international level.
• This model would have more success if a known brand took the lead. (Again, I always tend to cite NPR.)

There has been much opining about the New York Times pay wall that went up this week. I was quoted in a Neiman Lab post on the topic; I wrote about it for the Reynolds Journalism Institute, where I’m currently a fellow; and I was a guest on WNPR, an NPR station in Connecticut, to discuss the topic with other news professionals.

Here’s one thing that I previously haven’t said publicly: Whether or not they know it, and without identifying it as such, the New York Times has taken a big step towards the NPR model. And that puts them just a stone’s throw away from the Spot.Us model. In some respects, I actually think they are closer and more likely to pull it off than NPR.

Subscription Plan Isn’t About Access

Let’s start by calling a “duck” what it is. The “pay wall” is not a “wall.” It’s incredibly porous. A savvy reader can find a dozen ways around it, from finding a Tweet of the story you’re interested in to removing part of the Times’ URL. In other words, the subscription plan is not about access. People that think the fee is about access are the same folks who think they have to pay AOL for Internet access in order to keep their AOL email address. Savvy readers will know it isn’t about “access” but rather something else. For starters, it benefits the print subscribers, who pay less for digital access than all-digital subscribers. Fair enough.

But I am willing to bet a LOT of people will pay for a “subscription” not for access and not because it comes with their print subscription, but for something else.

Donation Driven Journalism

If there is one thing that Press+ has taught us (aside from the fact that really rich folks can hype up a technology product and sell it off for millions of dollars) it’s that, yes, people will pay for news even if access to is never truly restricted. That’s a limited audience/market, but it exists. Interestingly enough, the price point doesn’t matter as much as one would think. That audience will pay $5 if you ask, and they’ll pay $15 if you set that as the benchmark.

National Public Radio has known about this small market for a LONG time. I could have told you this within 10 minutes of launching Spot.Us. But at least today we can see it as more of a given for the conversation. There is an audience that will pay for content. It’s small, and not a replacement for advertising, but it’s there.

The NYTimes.com subscription plans are not enough to sustain the entire organization, but it is a new revenue stream that didn’t exist before. You can call it a “pay wall” or a “metered wall” but, again, I think we should call a duck a duck. This is a donation system, plain and simple. News organizations don’t want to refer to “metered walls” as “donations,” and I understand why. I’m happy to stroke their hair as they cry into their ink-stained hands. We can call it whatever they want, but it’s a donation because there is no HARD reason for anyone to pay it other than because they want to or are too uninformed about how to get around it.

A Modest Proposal

Assuming the New York Times doesn’t want its future tied to the technical ignorance of the masses the way AOL currently does with its dial-up customers, the next question is: What can the Times give to its new donors? As Dave Winer and Steve Outing have both said:

“Wouldn’t it have been wise to, at this juncture, offer something to sweeten the deal. Something truly exciting and new that you get when you pay the money. Something that makes your palms sweat and your heart beat faster?” (Dave Winer)

Tote bags? Bumper stickers? Membership to a wine of the month club (with wine reviews from the Times sent along with every bottle)?

These incentives are necessary because the Times needs to find other ways to keep a paying customer on board. Where one month somebody might pay, the next they’ll slap their face and say, “Why am I doing this? It’s certainly not for access.”

These tote bag gifts mimic NPR fundraising. But let’s think even further. What could be an incentive that would increase transparency and participation in journalism and not cost the NYT organization infrastructure costs (ie: purchasing and shipping thousands of tote bags)?

Imagine if along with every $15 monthly “metered access” payment a NYTimes.com reader also got five NYT Points. After three months they’ve accumulated 15 NYT Points. Those points can then be used to vote on topics, areas of coverage, or redeemed for the tote bag mentioned above (an excellent plan B).

Again, NPR could do this tomorrow, except — believe it or not — NPR is a bureaucratic nightmare when it comes to how donations are handled. Remember, each NPR station is unique and the mothership NPR, aside from being caught in a culture war, is not allowed to fundraise from individuals the way independent stations are.

But the Times doesn’t have this hangup. Whether they admit it or not, they’ve begun fundraising efforts this week. So will the NYT find something to make it fun for donors? Or do they think that the false claim to “access” is enough?

Opportunity to Interact with the Times Community

I think there are a lot of smart folks at the Times and they’ll be watching how people react and pay/don’t pay for this subscription system. For those that do pay it one month the question is, will they continue to pay? For that, they need to be purchasing something. Call them “NYT Points,” call it “NYT Membership” — I don’t care. But I think a part of it should include giving those members a stake in how the funds from their subscription are spent.

In other words, there could be a new sense of transparency and participatory control in how a news organization spends its funds. With their new metered pay wall, the NYT is just one incy-wincy step away from cracking the code to crowd-funded journalism. Why do I want to pay my $15 this month? Because then I can vote on next month’s NYT coverage. This would be the NYT using a kind of Spot.Us model.

And if that day ever comes, you won’t find anyone happier than me.

In the two years since our site has launched, we’ve funded over 160 projects with the help of 5,000 contributors, a fifth of whom contributed more than once. We’ve done this in collaboration with 95 organizations, and our reporting projects have won eight journalism awards.

We’re pushing forward, but we need advice, ideas and support from the public. You can read more at the full “State of the Spot.”

Meanwhile, we’ve had two Carnival of Journalism blog-o-rama-fests thanks to the Reynolds Journalism Institute. They’re fun and exciting, but I want input from the participants here as well. There are two more #jcarns that I’m going to host. After that, I want a fair and honest way to give the emerging community control without losing the momentum that comes from somebody taking the wheels. Got ideas? Leave them in the comments.

Although I formed the question, I’m going to play a little devil’s advocate and potentially get derailed. I thought about writing on  Spot.Us but that just seems like the obvious thing for me to do. There is also an application in the Knight News Challenge where I’m a co-applicant, but I don’t want to write about it just yet as I’m not sure how public the other party wants to be. So instead – I want to look into an assumption of this question and potentially get lost along the way.

There is an assumption in the question that increasing the number of news sources is positive. That’s a statement I more or less stand behind and has been a driving force in my career. With Spot.Us, for example, we have helped people that might not otherwise commit acts of journalism to get the confidence and support to do so.

Jeff Jarvis picks up this thread in a recent post “It’s not all about content and work.” Another way to phrase it – journalism isn’t just about being a storyteller – but being a story-enabler.

Fair enough. I think Jarvis makes a great argument. One I’ve made before as well using baseball instead of basketball as the analogy. So while I’m on the same page with Jeff, I also believe there is a concentration of power which is self-defeating mostly because we fail to recognize it.

There is a tension between being a source of news and the means of producing/sharing the news. At a reecent J-lab event somebody referred to Facebook as a “Gutenberg type invention.” I couldn’t disagree more vehemently. Whereas Gutenberg distributed power I see Facebook as leveraging the disruption from an invention and creating a new bottleneck of power.

Let’s do a quick overview of three stops in history through the lens of “information is power.”

• Pre-Gutenberg: To have information/power you needed to be literate and have access to books. A high barrier. Thus, power is very concentrated mostly among clergy, monarchs, etc.
• Post-Gutenberg: Access to books became cheaper. Literacy was still a highish barrier for a good chunk of the population. More important in terms of information power is the saying: “The power of the press belongs to those who own one.” Power became slightly decentralized, but the invention of the printing press didn’t drastically change the power structure of who could decimate information. There was still a high barrier to publish. You had to have access to capital ie: bourgeoisie. If you weren’t – the most you could achieve was being able to read and access books. A powerful movement forward, but not truly empowering.
• Post-World Wide Web: Tim Berners Lee is far closer to a Gutenberg than Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. In modern times literacy rates are relatively high (we can always do better) and the ability to find information has dropped to near zero since we don’t need hard-bound books. Unlike the printing press the average persons’ ability to publish ideas has also dropped to near $0. Yea for the Internet revolution!!!

And yet, there is still a barrier for the average person to realize the true power of the Internet and most don’t even fully recognize that. We are appeased by using platforms created for us – and that concentrates power. Just as the true power of Gutenberg’s revolution belonged to those who owned the press, the power of Tim Berners’ Revolution belongs to those who create the framework from which we publish. In other words the power of the Internet belongs to those who can code in its language. There is a different type of literacy (programming) that provides a new sense of power. As a result, a drastically small percentage of the population has actual power on the web. Again, the majority of us don’t care and that’s understandable, we are living our lives offline. But the fact remains that Twitter, Facebook and other platforms have terms of use and policies that govern a significant portion of the world’s population.

This is why Facebook’s privacy policies aren’t trivial. For many people it feels as if there is no other choice. Wanted to read something pre-Internet, better hope there was a book publisher that agreed with you. Want to express yourself online, better hope it doesn’t bump up against a terms of use policy. I have nothing against platforms creating a terms of use policy or even profiting off people using their site. What I’m suggesting, however, is that there is still a barrier, a relatively high one, to truly harness the power that the web possesses. We can sit and cheer all the accomplishments – and we should, it is a huge step forward, but more can be done.

I’m going to invoke Matt Thomspon who imagined the “speakularity” as a time in the future when automatic speech transcription will become fast, free, and decent. What I imagine is a time in the future when the manipulation of database structures are drag and drop. I don’t just mean Drupal out of the box. I mean so simple my mother could do it (to put this in perspective I had to do video tutorials for her on how to use Gmail).

I know there are ways to create drag and drop mock-ups. There are also tools that let you do drag and drop surveys (Google Form). I want to see these combined and on steroids. So powerful that all I have to do is buy a domain and on my personal computer use this software to create a dynamic site connected to a real database of my choosing. Afterwards, the Internet will make me breakfast. I like my eggs over-easy.

I realize it’s a sci-fi scenario (even before the breakfast part) but it seems like the next logical step to further spread the power of information. Now you can do more than use other people’s platforms to publish. You can create your own platform from scratch. Thing Ning – but not sucking and more open.

So the question started out: “considering your unique circumstances what steps can be taken to increase the number of news sources.”

In the end I gave my own sci-fi answer. While it doesn’t take into consideration my “unique circumstances” or skills, it is a scenario I’d like to see before I die. It’s a scenario that I believe would increase, even further, the number of news sources we have.

In order to foster a strong round-table I wanted to spur conversation among this group BEFORE the event takes place. In an effort to do this – we re-started the Carnival of Journalism. Welcome to the party! The first few rounds are on me!

Below will be my humble contribution as an individual. Soon I’ll do a wrap-up post that links to all the other participants who joined us in discussing this topic and wow WHAT A GROUP! I’m excited to see what happens as the “COJ” moves forward. I’m a big believer in social media, Twitter, Facebook and all our fast moving conversation. My hope is that the COJ might give us space to reflect on larger issues. So wait for the wrap-up post which will appear here and at Carnival of Journalism soon. Then, feel free to digitally meet your fellows carnival goers, mingle, drink, be merry, debate (at a high level of discourse) then go fourth and journalize.

This month’s topic and my humble contribution: The changing role of Universities for the information needs of a community: One of the Knight Commission‘s recommendations is to “Increase the role of higher education…..as hubs of journalistic activity.” Another is to “integrate digital and media literacy as critical elements for education at all levels through collaboration among federal, state, and local education officials.”

My post here will be greatly surpassed by the aggregation of everyone’s thoughts. But since this is my blog – here we go!

Universities have a unique advantage in this “changing media environment.” They are sheltered from economic realities. True – they do have a bottom line, but it is not governed by the same forces. Journalism programs don’t need to focus on the ad-spending rates of print vs. digital because it impacts whether or not a professor will have a job. They focus on it to the extent that it impacts their students lives once they leave the hive. With that advantage comes great responsibility. Yes, just like Spiderman.

In addition to this unique advantage – Universities have a distinct disadvantage. The reporting is done from within a university. When I went to Columbia’s J-school I worked on a project NYC24. It’s a great way to learn skills but the finished content felt as though it was placed behind a glass case – it was museum work. Aside from my parents and other class mates who stared at it – the impact was minimal. Being voted the EIC of this site was like being the hallway monitor (Our EIC went on to be do PR for Karl Rove – not a joke). Combine this with trying to get a call back when you say you’re a journalism student and you’ll understand what I mean by saying – it’s implication and attraction to the rest of the world is null and void. I like programs like News21.org, but I fear it’s more of the same. Now instead of just one j-school website behind a glass wall, we have several j-schools.

Taking those two things into consideration – I would make two specific recommendations for the changing role of Universities in regards to the information needs of a community.

ONE RECOMMENDATION: There are a few University projects that have shed the “museum” feel. In the Bay Mission Local is a bright shinning example. In Los Angeles check out Neon Tommy. I credit it almost completely to Lydia Chavez and Marc Cooper respectively. But since cloning them isn’t a strategy, I’d guess the following elements also helped.

(a. Neither are seen as ‘necessarily’ associated with the university. Rather – the sites have a unique flavor and they ‘happen’ to be associated with a university. Again, this is a tough nut to crack and I think requires individual professors like Marc and Lydia to be given the space and resources to produce independent sounding/standing projects.

(b. Partnering with other news organizations. This is a touchy subject because for some it sounds like student labor to prop up failing organizations – flooding the market with cheap labor so professional journalists can’t get hired. See UC Berkeley’s collaboration with The Bay Citizen. Watch carefully Patch and other universities.

Bottom line: I see almost NO reason why there should be a “student” newspaper at the graduate level. Or why any “student” work should remain such. It’s the real world. If journalists want to complain about pajama bloggers – why not add journalism students to the mix

On a broader level I want to talk about universities outside of j-schools.

RECOMMENDATION TWO: Universities play an important role in their communities beyond just being diploma mills that collect tuition. UC Berkeley is, historically, a great example. (See “Berkeley in the 60′s). In relation to this journalism students should be working with students from history, communication and other departments to train them. Yes, you heard me. Journalism students should be teachers. Journalism is no longer the art of story-telling. It can also be the art of story-enabling. If there was one change I’d want to see in curriculum across the board it would be to envision a class whereby journalism students find ways to get the broader student body involved in media projects. This, I believe, is the biggest change that needs to happen.

Or flip this on its head: History, communication, sociology, etc – all these departments should include journalism into their curriculum. Journalism doesn’t need to be done by big J-Journalism students. At the undergraduate level why isn’t every history major tasked with creating a blog and covering one local issue or partnering with journalism students? After all what is history but really really slow journalism

In short – the first recommendation implies concrete implications from student work. Call it an “Ameri-corp” if you will, although I hate that analogy (hoping Conor from Localocracy picks up this topic as I’ve heard him champion it before).
My second recommendation: We’re too involved in our own journalism programs. Knight (or some other entity with a ton of money) should find a way to lobby/change curriculum in other departments to include elements of journalism. EVERY student should leave college with some experience of reporting and writing.

And for extra credit!

Check out what Jarvis is doing at CUNY. There needs to be more of this. The goal here is not to cover a region, but to innovate. And not just in an academic setting. For some students his class even turned into real funds to start a project. Obviously we can’t do offer that at every journalism program – but we can create space to be creative.

Journalism is an interesting thing to teach in the first place. We call it a craft and yet I have a “Masters in Science” of journalism. It’s everyday history and yet it’s a blue-color practical job. The academics of it and the application of it are two distinct things.
For the sake of how Universities can get involved in the information needs of communities – they have been and always will be hubs. In the 60′s that mean giving a space for picketing. That lead to the shooting at Kent State, a tragedy for sure, but also a national moment. A space for the country to face itself in the mirror. Universities need to provide the same digital space today.

OJR had an interesting post out today that is making the rounds. But I see a big problem with it.

Their headline: “The pros and cons of newspapers partnering with ‘citizen journalism’ networks.”

The post was an aggregation of quotes from different newspaper people. All the quotes had good points. The basic rundown.

Pro = We can make money off of it.
Con = We still don’t really trust “them.”

And therein lay the problem: This is a one sided (us vs. them) newspaper centric conversation.

The important pros and cons of citizen journalism have much less to do with newspapers and more to do with…. life.

These are the pro/con I see with citizen journalism and the potential partnering with news organizations.

Pro = a healthy and vibrant conversation is good for democracy.
Con = filter failure.

Interesting the role that newspapers play in relation to this broader picture of citizen journalism.

Pro newspaper relation: Newspapers typically played this role and need to continue doing so and newspapers are hurting (although not because of citizen journalism). So the question is if newspapers are losing their prestigious place as the “4th estate” by recognizing that citizens can play that role without “the press” traditionally understood.

Con newspaper relation: newspapers respond to the filter failure by providing an authoritative voice.

Interesting that the relationship of the pro and con that come to my mind are reversed in their relationship to newspapers. The pro of citizen journalism can be interpreted as a con for newspapers and the con of filter failure can be responded to with a strong editorial voice by newspapers.

Just a late night thought.

Clay Shirky is a wise sage in this era. If the revolution we are going through is akin to that of Gutenberg’s Clay Shirky is a Martin Luther.

I bring him up because most of what I will write below has been written by him in Twitter form. “The rallying cry isn’t ‘save newspapers’ but ‘save society.’”

Journalism is a loaded term. Defining it at times feels like counting how many angels can stand on the tip of a needle.

Much easier is articulating the goals of journalism. At its best the aim is “to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.” This is one of my favorite quotes on the purpose of journalism. Another is “to speak truth to power.” I’m sure others exist. What’s your favorite?

Journalism as a word is loaded because of the ministry it invokes. The profession that, since Watergate, has laid claim to it. That ministry is now a diaspora. Much like after the Gutenberg revolution the ministry lost its authority in interpreting the bible. Martin Luther showed us how. In reaction many journalists cling even tighter to that word.

But the word needs to be redefined.

I go back to Henry Jenkins who pinpointed why I dislike the term “citizen journalism.”

In some respects I dislike the term “journalism.” (My take on The Rhetoric of Journalism.)

Now before you get your tar and feather – here me out.

I love the idea of speaking truth to power. I love the idea of afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted. I love the idea of communities informing themselves so they can make better decisions.

Journalism does this – but if we didn’t call it “Journalism” (with a big J) would it make any difference? What is at stake here isn’t an industry. Yes, it’s sad to lose an industry. We lost the button making industry when plastic button making machines were made. That was sad. We lost the horse shoe making industry when cars replaced horses. We have probably lost countless industries due to technical innovations.

But did we lose clothes? Did we lose the freedom to travel? Has our general progress as a world been forward towards more freedom and democracy? What is bad for newspapers might be good for the word (Yes – putting content online for free has caused economic problems for newspapers – but it has made mankind better).

And while we may be losing something in terms of robustness of newspapers we are gaining something new with citizen media (there’s that term again?!?).

People wonder if citizen journalism can replace professionals. That’s the WRONG QUESTION.

The silliness of that question: If Major League Baseball stopped tomorrow would all the little leagues in the country be able to replace it? If industrial sweater factories shut down tomorrow would knitting hobbyists be able to replace them?

Nobody would ever ask these questions because the goal of little leagues and knitting groups isn’t to replace their professional counterparts. Instead, they are to create a sense of community, a positive activity for children. If these non-professional activities disappeared could they be replaced? Could professional baseball play the role of the local little league?

So I ask: If citizen journalism activities were to stop tomorrow could professional journalists replace them?

Do I really dislike the term “journalism” – of course not. But it is so incredibly loaded. In another post we could discuss how it needs a re-branded (which is doubly-ironic, I know). We discuss this craft but readers don’t care what we call it. They care about whether it “speaks truth to power, afflicts the comfortable, etc.” That newspaper circulation has been going down since 1972 (well before the Internet) should say something to us all.

What we need to preserve isn’t newspapers. I’d argue it isn’t even “journalism” as we understand it. What we need to save is something else. Something more fundamental. The ability for communities to be informed with honest information and then to mobilize based on that information.

And that’s all I really have to say about that….