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Media Convergence, Blog Style

Following are the remarks I prepared for Saturday's session of the Virginia blog summit in Charlottesville. I shortened them somewhat for delivery. See the extended entry for more details on the summit and what other bloggers wrote about it.

I have a confession to make, and it's one that I think many of you here today will appreciate: I'm a blog-aholic.

I get high on pithy prose and punchy headlines. My dream is to live in a world where everything happens in reverse chronological order.

I went to a reception in Washington last night for the launch of Congress Blog, and when I got home, my wife just looked at me and said: "I know where you were. You were with your mistress, and her name starts with a 'b.'"

Yes, it's true. I ... love ... blog.

I'm not a blogger, though; I'm a journalist. I work 40-plus hours a week as the managing editor of an online, subscription-based publication called Technology Daily. Members of Congress, lobbyists and lawyers pay to read the news we publish.

I am a Washington insider, a card-carrying member of the MSM. I am the sworn enemy of bloggers.

That is what you call convergence. Media convergence. And it is happening in Internet time between the blogosphere and the mainstream media:

-- Newspapermen write blogs, and bloggers write for newspapers. One recent headline in Online Journalism Review asked, "Can Newspapers Do Blogs Right?"

-- Both LexisNexis and Reuters have struck deals for distributing blog content, and the new BlogBurst syndication service already has some major newspapers as clients.

-- Associated Press has partnered with the blog search engine Technorati.

-- And CNN Money recently listed "blog editor" among seven trendy jobs.

One of the best examples of convergence recently happened in Washington. The print newcomer in town, The Examiner, hired my friend Mark Tapscott as its editorial-page editor. Mark is an ink-stained wretch who loves blogs almost as much as me, and he immediately proceeded to create a "blog board of contributors" at The Examiner.

Smart journalists like Mark realize that bloggers have one of the things that mainstream media value most: fresh voices. And smart bloggers know that their voices will carry much further in the amphitheater of old media than in the echo chamber that is the blogosphere.

The convergence of old and new media is apparent in official circles, too:

-- Earlier this year, the Federal Election Commission largely exempted blogs from campaign finance law by characterizing them as media.

-- At about the same time, a House subcommittee invited bloggers to cover a hearing on Internet censorship, reserving space for them just as they would credentialed journalists and even providing wireless Internet access so they could live-blog. Some of the folks at the table were "pure" bloggers, and some were newspaper bloggers.

-- On another front just a few weeks ago, the state of Connecticut enacted a "shield" law designed in part to give bloggers and other citizen media the same rights as traditional media to protect the identities of their sources.

-- And not long after that, a California court sided with bloggers who had been sued by Apple Computer in its bid to learn the identities of anonymous sources.

Obstacles to the convergence remain. Not all states have shield laws, for instance, and some experts have warned against extending a proposed federal shield law to blogs. Credentialing also poses a serious challenge for bloggers. At least one of them in Kentucky was denied credentials to cover the state legislative session this year, and the rules for press access to Congress are stacked against citizen journalists.

But convergence is here, and it has only just begun. New developments seem to come on a weekly basis. I don't know exactly where it will lead, but I am convinced of this: Both blogs and the MSM will benefit from the convergence we are witnessing today.

And I, for one, can't wait to blog about it.

Coverage of the blog summit

-- The Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership hosted the summit and has podcasts of addresses given by Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, Attorney General Bob McDonnell and Washington Post reporter Michael Shear, who blogs at The Richmond Report.

-- The Daily Progress, the newspaper in Charlottesville, reported on parts of the summit. Rick Sincere, one of the bloggers at the event, also sent a report to a local newspaper.

-- Terry Rea of SLANTblog was one of two panelists who joined me in the discussion about blogging and journalism. At his blog, he offered some post-summit thoughts, including an entry on how bloggers are filling a political vacuum.

-- And the Blue Dog blog compiled a multiple-choice quiz based on quotes from the conference.

Other bloggers who attended the conference and posted entries on the event included:

-- CatHouse: "One of the reasons conferences like this are a good idea is that when you meet someone who differs so much from you in their political stance, sometimes you make assumptions about their personal character and attitude that really aren't there. Well, at least, I do -- sometimes. It is very good for me to see people face to face, chat with them, get to know them a little because then I see that for all our political differences, we are still very much alike. "

-- ChangeServant: "I agree with Mike Shear ... that, if a blogger wants to be seen as a journalist, a blogger has to act like a journalist -- not a repeater of idle gossip, innuendo and items of suspect truth. I also believe that those of us in the blogospere who play varying roles, campaign worker, lobbyist, etc., owe it to our readers to make clear what role we are playing on our blogs or posts."

-- Extra Innings: "[T]he real payoff was seeing and hearing the reeally, reeally young bloggers like Kenton Ngo and James Martin. Wow — those kids are technically sharp, scary-smart, opinionated, and politically engaged. They already are drilling into issues that we dodderers have tackled unsuccessfully for years and decades. In just a little while, I think they’re going to make change happen."

-- Waldo Jaquith (Day 1, Day 2): "Clearly things have changed a lot in the world of campaign finance since last year, and I speculate that I may have violated campaign finance law, based on what I learned."

-- The Jefferson Mammoth: "I don’t consider myself a journalist, but I think there are bloggers out there who should be. The discussion did somewhat inspire me to try to do some original stuff. We’ll see how long that inspiration lasts."

-- Shaun Kenney: "[T]he tables are turning. No longer are bloggers the conscience of the MSM, but rather journalists are reminding bloggers of their responsibilities to the public square. Mike Shear, for all of his constructive criticism of blogs, is proving to be the Socratic gadfly we all need to hear."

-- One Man's Trash: "Blogging cannot compare in reach or influence to a daily newspaper. That ought to be self-evident. At the same time, it should also be self-evident that online efforts like blogs are changing newspapers' business models before our eyes."

-- Vivian Paige (Day 1, Day 2): "[T]he two [workshops] I attended today -- ethics and blogging, and blogging and journalism -- both started with the same question: Are bloggers journalists? There was no consensus on this. ... Another thing that stuck with me today was the question of what would happen if bloggers didn't have the MSM to draw stories from for a week. Would we be able to generate our own content?"

-- Honesty Counts.

-- And I'm Not Emeril.

Posted by Danny | 07:47 PM

Comments

Danny,

It was a pleasure being a part of that Sorensen panel with you and Gordon. I found the discussion to be civil and stimulating. Your remarks added much to that tone.

-- Terry

F.T. Rea | 06.21.06 09:09 PM

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