Open Source Journalism Comes a Step Closer in Greensboro: A Plan is Shown

Re: “Again, all subcultures have such traits, but in journalism they’re more obvious, not to say more painful, because journalists are trying to describe reality to the rest of us. If most of the rest of us don’t identify with journalists, we won’t believe them.”

Yes. This is exactly the problem with the conduit rhetoric of modern journalism. I think that rhetoric is changing, and journalism must change with it.

LOL … MONKEYS, TYPEWRITERS, AND SHAKESPEARE

I see journalism as a subculture, which like all others, must be at least somewhat self-reinforcing to survive. The same tendencies that keep it together, however, both limit its appeal as an occupation to a relatively narrow range of personality types and place constraints on its output that limit its credibility among other subcultures.

Again, all subcultures have such traits, but in journalism they’re more obvious, not to say more painful, because journalists are trying to describe reality to the rest of us. If most of the rest of us don’t identify with journalists, we won’t believe them.

Perhaps journalists should be drafted from the general population by a random lottery. ;^)

Well, if I was in a position to manage your time, I would gladly, willing, and enthusiastically do so. I’d say something like, “Sure, Andrew, take the time you need to do it right, but don’t let important things like your job or family suffer, and make sure the quality of the product reflects the time spent, blah, blah, and anytime tomorrow will be fine.”

But I’m not, am I?

And yet, you the writer, the publisher, the expert, the giver of free ice cream, have basically put me on notice that I’ll need to be patient about the flavor of ice cream I’m interested in. Or is it an interest we share?

God, I love this blog-thing! More specifically, this blog.

Anyway, Jay Rosen had an important retort to power law mentioned above:

Here’s the long tail article about the importance of the many smaller blogs that has gotten so much attention and will be turned into a book. I recommend it if you have not read it yet. Seth: why so much about the power law, and so little about the long tail? I don’t find in the recent history of Big Media anything resembling the long tail of the blogging world. Do you?

My contribution to change: thinking about this stuff and trying to teach the next generation of reporters how to do a better job based on that thinking. It’s what academics do.

T- You’ll need to give me a little time to work on this.

R- Yes, because Franks is a liberal you should discount 100 percent of what he says. Me too, for that matter. I am a part of the liberal machine! I PRETEND to take an academic and balanced stance to suck the unsuspecting into the liberal web where we will suck the life out of them (i.e. high taxes). Buwhhahahahahahaha!

When you do, it would be great to elicit comments from Seth Finkelstein and Anna if possible. Just as “new” is “destroying” the (conduit metaphor of) legacy – the “new” mimics the legacy.

I would be interested in the relationship with Seth’s insights on power law (Utility sorters and resource shifters) and Anna’s (conformity enforcers and diversity enhancers) in discussing “new’s” Global Brain (BlogThink) and legacy’s (PressThink or MediaThink?).

The enabling technologies of the Obvious Society, while intriguing, are irrelevant. What’s critical is that it promises to free us from the smoke we blow up each others’ asses and, with a little bit of luck, make “isms” obsolete. (link added)

R – In other words, when does thinking become doing?

I wonder if it is not a combination of entreprenuerial risk based on “think” that “does” and consumerism that rewards (or not)?