The story got picked up by bunches of the online mainstream media.
The story was also wrong.
NetworkWorld has a short analysis piece (link via Fark), though it's all the usual suspects: time-pressures of the 24-hour news cycle, using a single anonymous source (even a "reliable" one), the desire not to be scooped, the willingness to run anything as long as you say "it was reported that...", etc.
However, don't lose sight of the potential of citizen journalism. Remember, citizen journalism is not about mainstream media sites choosing quotes and comments to showcase on their Web sites -- it's about people, alone or in groups, getting out there and doing reporting and analysis.
A prior example, of course, was "Rathergate" -- the scandal around the alleged documents about President Bush's Texas National Guard service, which was largely uncovered and driven by right-wing bloggers.
Yesterday gave us another example, when the New York Sun reported that readers of lefty politics group blog TPMMuckraker.com banded together (or "swarmed around") to sort through 3,000 pages of documents related to the U.S. Attorney firings, released by the Justice Department in the middle of the night.
Previously, it's been common Washington practice to try to bury bad news by releasing it late at night, or on Friday afternoons (especially in the summer), on the fringes of the normal news cycle.
With the distributed power of online media, though, that might have to change.
Page 2 of the story lists out some potential pitfalls (duplication of effort or misinterpretation), as well as other possible uses -- poring through spending bills for pork, perhaps.
For another recent development in the world of citizen journalism, check out Assignment Zero, which is a shot at "Pro-Am" journalism. What's Pro-Am? From their site:
"The "ams" are simply people getting together on their own time to contribute to a project in journalism that for their own reasons they support. The "pros" are journalists guiding and editing the story, setting standards, overseeing fact-checking, and publishing a final version."Wired News is a participant. It's an interesting model (they mention "crowdsourcing" a lot. The "wisdom of crowds" + "outsourcing" = "crowdsourcing"). Let's see what happens when they start breaking stories.
Thanks -- Joe
1 comment:
I was watching the news yesterday and while the media was awaiting the live press conference from Edwards, they all sat around their news desks speculating what would be announced in just a matter of minutes. It was really quite comical, and not the least bit professional, as they fied for on air proof that they scooped the story even before it was officially announced. So they speculated and hypothesized and theorized right up until the moment Edwards proved them all wrong. Hahahaha!
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