I've been moderating a conference all day that looks at participatory journalism, blogs, new media, and the relationship of news consumers to news producers — a big grab bag of too much stuff to cram in to a six-hour session. Conference participants — I'd say there's about 100 or so from around North America — are in various break-out groups right now, giving the moderator a chance to jot down some notes and provide some links.
The conference is organized by Leonard Witt and the Public Journalism Network, with financial help from the Canadian Newspaper Association.
Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News gave a quick tour of new publishing tools, new gadgets for collecting, receiving and transmitting information, and some new ways for news to get produced and consumed. Speaking about RFIDs, Dan said: “Not only will every person have a story, but every object will have a story.”
Len Witt spoke about the “ethical transformation” gripping Big Media.
Warren Kinsella said he believes that blogs may soon be swallowed, legitimized and neutered by Big Media in the same way that punk rock (about which he's writing a book) was subsumed by pop culture. Jay Rosen disagreed and gave us a neat blow-by-blow of his days blogging the Democratic National Convention.
Jan Schaffer, the director of the J-Lab at the University of Maryland said participatory journalism is more than just blogging. In fact, she said she's not a big fan of blogs. She spoke about building entry points — digital or otherwise — for a journalism organization. That idea seems to be close to the newspaper page designer's idea of 'entry points' on a page, i.e. give a reader several opportunities on each page of the paper to stop and get into it. That's why a page has photos, briefs, long stories and short stories — several points for a reader to stop a minute and read something. Jan says those entry points are the key to participatory journalism.
Jeff Jarvis raced through his presentation and spoke about the idea that the next generation of j-school grads can be enterpreneurs? But I say do we really want journalist-entrepreneurs? I like the idea that, in my newsrooms, there is a division of labour. It lets me focus on the journalism part of my business and not tech support or sales or the other stuff that lets me tell stories.
Neil Heinen, who runs a TV station in Madison Wisconsin, says public journalism is still town hall meetings and face-to-face stuff. “We're still out there dragging the candidates to the citizens”.
Mary Lou Fulton gave us a rundown on The Northwest Voice, a community paper in Bakersfield, Calif. for which the online component is a vital and central component, not an adjunct to the print version.
Others here blogged the day so far. Some pointers to them: