Mark on Media

Thursday, December 9, 2004

GILLMOR ON THE MOVE

This I will be watching with interest: Dan Gillmor announced in his San Jose Mercury News blog today that he's leaving the newspaper "to work on a citizen-journalism project."

No details in his post, but whatever the veteran reporter, blogger and author of We, The Media is up to will be worth following closely.
10:21:27 PM LINK TO THIS POST

HERE'S BAD NEWS

From News Bluntly:

Watching the news can be hazardous to your health, according to a recent study out of the UK's Nottingham Trent University. "...watching an average day's events from around the world in a short time triggers depression, confusion, irritation, anger and anxiety," according to a story in The Guardian.

I thought it was the current events quizzes that were getting to the students. Turns out it's the current events themselves.
9:48:02 PM LINK TO THIS POST

CBC GOES RSS

CBC is the latest to add RSS feeds to deliver headlines from the Mother Corp to your news reader. It also has something I haven't seen anywhere else where I've signed up for RSS feeds: a legal "contract" you have to agree to.

Among the clauses is this one:

CBC/Radio Canada may revise this Agreement at any time by updating this posting. Use of the CBC Feed after such changes are posted will signify your agreement to these revised terms.

I'm no lawyer but that seems to say that I agree to all their terms, even if they change the terms after I've clicked "I Agree."

There's a lot more legalese there, but what it boils down to is: this is ours and you can only use it the way we want you to. Jeez. All I want is to read the headlines, folks. Lighten up.

SOURCE: I Love Radio

UPDATE: Also from Todd Maffin at I Love Radio is a funny report on the CRTC and how it remains behind the times.
9:43:18 PM LINK TO THIS POST

WIRED BLOGS

Worldwide blogs as a new news service, serving up images, audio and video for use by media around the world? That's the idea being discussed at The Shape of Days and there are some intriguing ideas there.

For example.... a blogger who calls himself "Discoshaman" has been covering the pro-democracy rallies in Kiev, complete with original photography of protesters and events on the ground. [He] uploads them to his blog. End of story. Maybe he keeps his own photo album or something, but that's it as far as sharing his photos with the world.

But imagine that instead of posting just a few low-resolution copies, he uploads high-resolution originals [~] complete with metadata and captions [~] to the blogosphere news wire server. The photos ...go on the wire for anybody to see and download. They're originals, not low-res copies, so they're suitable for use on television or in newspapers.

It sounds like a natural extension of citizens media: those on the ground helping the "professionals" cover what's happening around the world. There's nothing to stop it from happening now: cover a major event, toss the images onto the web with links to hi-res images, and turn them loose under a Creative Commons licence that allows for commercial use in exchange for a photo credit, and that retains ultimate copyright.

Media would be slow to adopt such a scheme. Professional and freelance photojournalists won't like the loss of revenue; media may have problems judging credibility. And no Big Media wants to use something that isn't exclusive, at least in its primary market.

But there are huge potential benefits, including two that come immediately to mind: media wouldn't have to wait until "their people" are on the ground and small media would be able to start playing in the same leagues as the big boys.

SOURCE: unmediated.org
9:31:44 PM LINK TO THIS POST