The news that the popular political blog the Huffington Post is going to start doing some of it's own original reporting sort of caught me off guard when I read a story in the New York Times yesterday.
I know blogs are a big deal and that some of them do their own original reporting (they're definitely not afraid to break big stories), but this was different because the Post blog is hiring journalists like any other media organization would to do reporting on the 2008 campaign and Congress this January. Arianna Huffington, who started the blog, said the site hired Melinda Henneberger, a print journalist who worked with Newsweek magazine most recently and was a New York Times reporter before that.
The Post site got a $5 million investment earlier this year and Huffington said that it was always her intention to do original reporting and now she has the funds to do so. “That’s the combination you need online,” she said in the New York Times story adding that her reporters will have deadlines, regular schedules and travel for stories, which is very atypical in the blogosphere. Her reporters will also be paid, also an anomaly for the blogosphere.
So, for all this talk about the blogosphere being "new media" and it's own form of journalism, I think news like this shows that bloggers are going to continue to more more toward the mainstream media.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Blogging's policing function?
While everyone knows that blogging has become the new popular Web 2.0 thing to do online these days, I heard something this week that made me consider a new possible function of blogs and just how their "citizen journalist" aspect might play out.
I read on Poynter Online this week that last Friday Jackie Danicki, an American blogger and social media consultant living in London, was attacked by two men in a London Underground. But, instead of letting the traditional methods of justice take their course, Danicki turned to her blog in addition to going to the police. Danicki was able to snap a picture of the attacker on her camera cell phone as he yelled at her and later posted it on her blog to get the word out and help the perpetrator be brought in, asking her loyal readers to identify the men and report them to the British Transport Police. While it seems like a logical thing for a woman seeking justice to do, it could potentially mean that technology might have implications for governmental bureaucracies or the justice system in general.
In the Poynter post, blogger Amy Garahan quoted a University of Florida professor who was concerned with this use of technology as well and its societal implications. Mincy McAdams wrote in her blog of the man in Danicki's photo, "Now more than a dozen other bloggers have linked to or reposted the picture of this young person. He might be guilty -- but doesn't Britain have courts to determine that? I live in a country with a long and horrifying and all-too-recent history of lynching. This viral photo manhunt in London scares me down to the marrow of my bones." Garahan agreed and said, "It's a valid concern. Someone who merely resembles the man in the picture could end up in dire straits," she said.
I think this is a concern and something that governments have to take into consideration for the future. If citizen journalists have the opportunity to seek their own justice, will that lead to going over the police's head, which ultimately leads to anarchy? Maybe that's going a little too far, but after all this talk about newspapers having to adapt to Web 2.0 culture to survive as a business, I think that maybe national governments shouldn't be left out of the conversation and should recognize their vulnerabilities because of changing technologies as well.
I read on Poynter Online this week that last Friday Jackie Danicki, an American blogger and social media consultant living in London, was attacked by two men in a London Underground. But, instead of letting the traditional methods of justice take their course, Danicki turned to her blog in addition to going to the police. Danicki was able to snap a picture of the attacker on her camera cell phone as he yelled at her and later posted it on her blog to get the word out and help the perpetrator be brought in, asking her loyal readers to identify the men and report them to the British Transport Police. While it seems like a logical thing for a woman seeking justice to do, it could potentially mean that technology might have implications for governmental bureaucracies or the justice system in general.
In the Poynter post, blogger Amy Garahan quoted a University of Florida professor who was concerned with this use of technology as well and its societal implications. Mincy McAdams wrote in her blog of the man in Danicki's photo, "Now more than a dozen other bloggers have linked to or reposted the picture of this young person. He might be guilty -- but doesn't Britain have courts to determine that? I live in a country with a long and horrifying and all-too-recent history of lynching. This viral photo manhunt in London scares me down to the marrow of my bones." Garahan agreed and said, "It's a valid concern. Someone who merely resembles the man in the picture could end up in dire straits," she said.
I think this is a concern and something that governments have to take into consideration for the future. If citizen journalists have the opportunity to seek their own justice, will that lead to going over the police's head, which ultimately leads to anarchy? Maybe that's going a little too far, but after all this talk about newspapers having to adapt to Web 2.0 culture to survive as a business, I think that maybe national governments shouldn't be left out of the conversation and should recognize their vulnerabilities because of changing technologies as well.
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