Saturday, January 08, 2005

Jeff Jarvis: Selling your soul for a buck and some buzz. 5:24:49 PM    comment []

Guzzling the Kool-Aid John Robinson: "As soon as he's finished with a couple of stories, Lex Alexander will begin designing and building our new Web presence fulltime following the open source journalism model. "His report was comprehensive, and we want to do much of it...We had an interesting discussion about how much to reveal here. The traditional model -- don't tell until you launch -- had proponents. But under the idea that we're pursuing revolution, not evolution, we've decided to put it out when we know it, and even when we don't know it." John cites OhMyNews as one model. Lex, a longtime blogger whose memo deserves recognition as a serious piece of journalism in and of itself, has earned himself one of the plum jobs in the newspaper business this year -- anywhere, at any paper. 3:31:45 PM    comment []

Off to the Dean Dome for UNC-Maryland. 9:55:47 AM    comment []

City Councilman Tom Phillips blames, er, thanks me for helping him start blogging. Aren't we an odd couple? Based soley on politics, perhaps. But this publishing revolution is non-partisan. Having our elected officials speak directly to us -- no matter what their particular point of view -- is hugely important, in part because it should help us find our common ground even as we discuss our differences. Thanks for putting yourself out there, Tom.  I'd be happy to work with any other elected official interested in blogging, too. Remember, though -- the technology is the easy part. You can do that yourselves, for free, in about five minutes. Transparency and meaningful communication, there's your challenge. 9:54:56 AM    comment []

A TPM readers asks, re Armstrong Williams: "(W)ho else has been on the payroll? "They sank a quarter of a million into one not so prominent commentator to push a single issue -- not even one where they really needed help -- and they never greased anyone else? Not so credible." And Marshall is off and running... 9:40:35 AM    comment []

Dave Winer has some mixed feelings about the upcoming journalism conference at Harvard. I hear what he's saying -- but when I look at the list of participants I feel pretty confident that blogging and bloggers will get their due. 9:29:06 AM    comment []

Steve Outing: "Mainstream news organizations should consider the tsunami story as the seminal marker for introducing citizen journalism into the hallowed space that is professional journalism." 9:18:25 AM    comment []

Glenn Reynolds joins the journo-bribing story in progress, turns it into a discussion of blogging ethics. Bloggers cover what we want to cover. We often avoid stories that don't suit our narratives for as long as we can. But sooner or later, if you have carved out a niche in, say, politically-charged media criticism, your silence on a major story in that realm becomes deafening. I think the Williams bribery case is actually not much of a challenge even for see-no-evil Bush supporters, because it's so egregious. Props to Jonah Goldberg for recognizing this story early on. 9:14:18 AM    comment []