Discussing the future of citizen media with Dan Gillmor
MetroActive published a Q&A with Berkman fellow Dan Gillmor today about citizen media and the future of journalism. Gillmor is the author of "We the Media," and runs the Center for Citizen Media, where he also blogs daily.
From the interview (complete version is available here):
Question: The investigative journalist Seymour Hersh was asked by a British newspaper about your "We are the media" thesis. He responded, "The net does one thing great for people like me: It used to be that if I wrote a good hard story for The New Yorker magazine, and The New York Times didn't pick it up, then we all felt bad.Now the Internet is so vibrant that everything's on it—on blogs, logs or websites." Do you believe that's the most promising aspect of citizen journalism—its ability to replicate the public square rather than replicate Seymour Hersh?
Gillmor: Seymour Hersh, like a small number of other great reporters, can't be replicated. They're forces of nature. We need the work they do.
He's right that the net is making his work vastly more prominent than in the past. That's what tends to happen in an ecosystem where the highest-quality stuff gets flagged and pointed to.
In the Guardian interview you cite, Hersh also said, "Now everyone's worried that blogs will drive newspapers out of business, but it's not going to happen." This was a reference to journalistic competition, which so far isn't all that serious from blogs (though at least a few are clearly doing a better job than their traditional counterparts).
The competition issue that matters in the near term is the financial one. When companies that consider journalism a distraction take away classified advertising and other revenues that support traditional journalists, you have the real issue. Blogs aren't driving newspapers out of business; eBay and Craigslist and the host of advertising competitors might. (As noted, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's investment company helped me on the Bayosphere project, and Craig Newmark is a friend who's given some support to the new one.)
Newspapers and other media companies have no more innate right to exist than any other enterprise, but it would be terrible for our society if what Big Journalism does well failed to survive the current turmoil.
I love the public square part of blogging. I wish more newspapers and local broadcasters would embrace it, too. I think they'll have no alternative in the end.
From the interview (complete version is available here):
Question: The investigative journalist Seymour Hersh was asked by a British newspaper about your "We are the media" thesis. He responded, "The net does one thing great for people like me: It used to be that if I wrote a good hard story for The New Yorker magazine, and The New York Times didn't pick it up, then we all felt bad.Now the Internet is so vibrant that everything's on it—on blogs, logs or websites." Do you believe that's the most promising aspect of citizen journalism—its ability to replicate the public square rather than replicate Seymour Hersh?
Gillmor: Seymour Hersh, like a small number of other great reporters, can't be replicated. They're forces of nature. We need the work they do.
He's right that the net is making his work vastly more prominent than in the past. That's what tends to happen in an ecosystem where the highest-quality stuff gets flagged and pointed to.
In the Guardian interview you cite, Hersh also said, "Now everyone's worried that blogs will drive newspapers out of business, but it's not going to happen." This was a reference to journalistic competition, which so far isn't all that serious from blogs (though at least a few are clearly doing a better job than their traditional counterparts).
The competition issue that matters in the near term is the financial one. When companies that consider journalism a distraction take away classified advertising and other revenues that support traditional journalists, you have the real issue. Blogs aren't driving newspapers out of business; eBay and Craigslist and the host of advertising competitors might. (As noted, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's investment company helped me on the Bayosphere project, and Craig Newmark is a friend who's given some support to the new one.)
Newspapers and other media companies have no more innate right to exist than any other enterprise, but it would be terrible for our society if what Big Journalism does well failed to survive the current turmoil.
I love the public square part of blogging. I wish more newspapers and local broadcasters would embrace it, too. I think they'll have no alternative in the end.