For those interested in the future of journalism, a couple of worthwhile reads, first, from Matthew Ingram, a former colleague of mine at the Globe and Mail, who argues: “Critics of HuffPo news “theft” are missing the point” and a response from David Weinberger, an excerpt of which, I reproduce below:
Traditional reportage is becoming valued more as an ingredient than a finished product. It’s the aggregators—the HuffingtonPosts of the world, but also the millions of bloggers, tweeters and retweeters, Facebook likers and Google plus-ers, redditors and slashdotters, BoingBoings and Ars Technicas— who are spreading the news by adding value to it. News now only moves if we’re interested enough in it to pass it along. So, I don’t know how to solve journalism’s deep problems with its business models, but I can’t imagine that limiting the circulation of ideas will help, since in this case, the circulatory flow is what’s keeping the heart beating.
[Read the rest of David’s response to Matthew: Joho the Blog » [2b2k] Is HuffPo killing the news? ]