It’s only circular if you think that old journalism is the only entity that can be in a position of trust. It isn’t.

However, even if it is, that doesn’t imply that keeping old journalism around is a good idea if it is in fact untrustworthy. Untrustworthy journalism is worse than no journalism.

> Maybe this is a renewed incentive for “old journalism” to build & protect their credibility?

Why will it change now? The consequences of being untrustworthy haven’t changed.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Maybe this is a renewed incentive for “old journalism” to build & protect their credibility? And then (before Jeff has my head on a spike) applies that credibility to the new media so we get real-time, interactive news?

Why would we trust old journalism now?

Ooh – I like that much better than “YouTube has a responsibility to curate their own content.” Let YouTube make more information available to trusted news sources for the purpose of analysis – that solves both problems.

Also, I think we need to remember that this isn’t all about us. Twitter’s big homerun in the Iranian elections has been its ability to help the people on the ground organize with each other. Any misinformation in that regard is quickly shouted down by others on the scene, and those on the ground who need to know the truth probably each have their own trusted sources.

It’s ability to substitute for a “Tehran news bureau” seems to have gone through a full product life cycle in just a few days (birth, extreme growth, plateau, decline) as we all marvelled at how participatory the whole thing was, and then suddenly realized that noise can creep in as easily as signal. If anything, it highlights the need for trusted sources (“curators,” as you’ve been calling them). Maybe old journalism isn’t dead after all? Maybe this is just helping it find its place?

What this means, of course, is that when there are times of crisis, it is too late to do what needs to be done. Rather, during peaceful times, we should work to build up the people’s participation in the information/news web.

Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, etc. have clearly served the Iranian people well. What we should be asking is how can we improve these tools and what new ones should we be building based on what we’ve learned. Also, how do we get these tools, or their equivalents, integrated into the fabric of all societies so that they are there when they are really needed…

bob wyman

Maybe there’s a role here for wikis like Sourcewatch and SpinProfiles. I do some research for the latter and I’ve come up with some interesting background on the guy behind the green avatars on Twitter:
http://www.spinprofiles.org/index.php/Arik_Fraimovich