MORE ON GREENSBORO

I've been thinking (and reading) a lot about what's going on in Greensboro and the coming together of blog community and newspaper in what appears to be a new way. (Jay Rosen's piece and the reaction to it is here and Ed Cone, one of the bloggers, has much more here.)

The significance here is that it's being done. Sure, there are problems to be overcome. There have already been a number of posts about the inequity of unpaid bloggers working with (however poorly) paid journalists. That's a potential biggie, but at this point it's also a detail to be worked out.

What appears to be happening in Greensboro is the at least partial erasure of the line between blogger and journalist and, more importantly, a waning of (or maybe death of) the distrust the two "sides" feel for each other. The blogophere insistence that Big Media is bad, corrupt, elite or disconnected needs to die, as much as the professional media's insistence that the blogophere is, by and large, so much amateur noise-making.

In Greensboro, they seem at least willing to explore dissolving that gap, as hesitant as some individuals on both sides of what is an artificial divide seem to be.

Also significant is the newspaper accepting blogging for what it is. Too many working in media miss what this is really all about. Doc Searls a long post today that hits it as well as anything I've read. It should be required reading for media execs because it really helps to point to the potential power that's available. (Searls' item is the third one down, titled The Baton Passes.)

(Blogged from The Coffee Plantation in Key West. Great coffee, real friendly people and free wireless internet. Tough combination to beat.)
9:37:29 AM  LINK TO THIS POST  

GROWING MEDIA?

Not sure what the full impact of the following is. Does it mean WaPo Co. is merely adding another title to its stable, or is there something else happening here? When a major print media corp buys a major online publication (and a stable full of writers), it seems there's some great opportunities there for some new synergies. Not leveraging the strengths of each would seem to be a waste.

Washington Post to Buy Web Magazine Slate. NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Washington Post Co. said on Tuesday it would buy Microsoft Corp.'s online magazine Slate. Financial terms of the deal were not announced. [Reuters: Top News]
9:14:39 AM  LINK TO THIS POST