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December 21, 2003

The public life
: Chris Pirillo blogs his divorce. That's the problem of living publicly; the bad comes with the good.

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Serious business
: The threat level is orange and Dean tells bloggers to stop snarking about it and grow up.

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J-school prof gets it bigtime!
: Hats off to James Glen Stovall, a j-prof at the University of Alabama, whose new textbook on Web Journalism seems to get it, really get it. Hypergene Medialog [via CyberWriter] pulls a few notable quotes. This one sums up weblogs and their value and significance to big-time journalism as well as anything I've seen yet:

... on some topics, weblogs are a source of up-to-date information that no media organization attempts to match. In addition, weblogs have an inherent respect for their audiences and take advantage of their wide-ranging knowledge and expertise. While contributions may not come from trained journalists and may not be vetted through a traditional editing process, weblogs offer the possibility of presenting a much wider range of points of view about information than would be possible in the traditional media.

That's precisely the point I've been trying to make to the NY Times on Zeyad and the Bahgdad anti-terrorism demonstrations: Weblogs are a new source of information and viewpoints we could never before afford to gather. That's valuable. Period.
Stovall on web journalism:

This new relationship will have profound effects on the way journalists gather information and make decisions. Readers are likely to become sources of information and lead journalists to new inquiries and stories. They could provide valuable perspective to journalists who are new to a story or not part of the community they cover (two of the major criticism of journalists today), offering points of view that journalists would not normally hear in talking with “official” sources about their stories. The public journalism movement (often called civic journalism), which seeks to involve the community in journalistic decision making, could be taken to a new level with the Web.

He even understands the value of community, which scares many an old-time journalists:

The idea of an Internet community is something of a radical departure for traditional journalistic thinking. These ‘communities’ may be short-term and topic-oriented. They may not be confined to the geographic areas that have traditionally defined audiences for journalists. They are likely to dissipate once the issue that brought the individuals together fades. On the other hand, they may survive and thrive beyond the control or the participation of the journalist who began them.

Professor, I give you an A.

: UPDATE: Jack Driscoll, the former editor of the Boston Globe and now a luminary at the MIT Media Lab, agrees with Stovall and points us to an interview with him about the Silver Stringers program he created with my boss. This really is a precursor to weblogs and hyperlocal and citizens' media. You wonder how I can get away with doing neat things at the day job? Now you know: a very enlightened boss.

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Spawn
: A frequent commenter hereabouts starts his own blog.

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It won't fly
: Daniel Drezner shows why a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage won't get off the ground. Thank goodness, a constitutional amendment is extremely difficult to enact. Threatening one is usually the last, desperate act of a hopeless movement.

: Update: Chris Geidner fisks the NY Times story that says a poll finds "strong support" for a gay marriage ban. [via Atrios]

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Many updates from the Iraqi blogosphere
: Zeyad introduces another new Iraqi blogger, Firas. Today's post says:

Disorder is the suitable soil to plant terrorism, that’s why we need to force order right now. By stopping cars from driving wrong side, stopping people to shot bullets in air, keeping people to stand in the line for fuel or anything else which are not available, we can win a great part of the battle of peace against terrorism.

: Alaa also calls for zero tolerance of terrorism.

: Now isn't this wonderful: A Best Iraqi Blog contest. (And lots more great blogs from Asia and environs here.)

: Zeyad gives us his report on the trip to Basrah, adding to his colleagues' chronicles (I'm going to start spelling the town as they spell it). He notes the damage to the electrical grid and the need to have guards staked out in tents under power towers to protect them from terrorists (see a photo here).
He and his friends like Basrah:

Basrah is truly wonderful and unlike anything I expected. The weather is warm, electric power is available 24/7, mobile phones have already flourished, clean streets, IP everywhere, very little traffic jams, no endless queues at petrol stations, and most importantly the security situation is much stable. I didn't hear a single gunshot during my two days stay, whereas in Baghdad gunfire and sudden explosions have become the background of everyday activity. It was almost as if we had left Iraq and visited another country....
It was a bit depressing to realize that all the postwar problems and much of the violence were concentrated in the capital. The farther we went from Baghdad, the more we felt secure and safer. Life in Basrah looked pretty normal. British soldiers wandered freely around town with very little protection. The Brits use Land Rovers for patrolling and soldiers don't wear bullet-proof vests. It was obvious that they were facing less troubles there than American troops in the northern and central Iraq.

Note to reporters in Iraq: Get out of Baghdad when you want to write about the state of things in Iraq.

: Zeyad said the poverty of the villages en route shocked him. Look at this representative picture of the mud-hut towns he saw along the way. This is life in an oil-rich nation? Blame Saddam for this, too.
Note, too, this mud house with a satellite dish.

: Zeyad (at last) put up another photo gallery, this from his trip. This shot looks like an ad for the longvity of Chevy's.

: Sam at the Hammorabi blog gives us count after count after horrifying count in the indictment against Saddam Hussein by the people he victimized.

: Sam is also doing a Snopes, debunking conspiracy theories that doubted details of Saddam's arrest because the dates in the picture were yellow and dates aren't supposed to be yellow now. Turns out, they are.

: Some folks are wondering what happened to River's post-Saddam-arrest post. Dunno.

: Salam and Raed each say that seeing Gaddafi's son on TV reminded them of Saddam's sons.

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Merry Christmas... Moblogging from my church...

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Okrent's narrative
: Dan Okrent writes his first real (post-introductory) column for The Times -- and sets his style as a public editor: He's not setting rules; he's not judging from on high; he's not theorizing about journalism; he's not scolding or defending.
He's telling a story. He takes on the issue of a reporter with a slight but still possible conflict of interest writing a story nonetheless (read the column for the details). He reports. He opines. He narrates.
It's journalism on journalism.

: Oh, yes, and I forgot one other important angle: He's educating.

One more thing...
: By the way, on the Times post below -- regarding coverage of the anti-terrorism demonstrations in Iraq -- I've distilled it in my mind down to one issue:
It's about sources.
Weblogs and citizens' media are a new source of news for news organizations.
To ignore them is to be ignorant.
That simple.
Like any other source, you need to attribute and issue caveats and check on them. But they are a source.
If The Times bureau had used Iraqi weblogs as a source, they would have (1) known when the demonstrations were to occur, (2) known from the authentic voices of Iraqis that these mattered and this this was news, and (3) would have gained material -- including photos -- if they had fallen short at covering the event itself.
Weblogs and citizens' media are a valuble source of news, information, viewpoint, and diversitiy for the news business. That's the real issue.

: UPDATE: Henry Copeland says Dan would be better off blogging than sending out scores of email replies.
: And Glenn Reynolds says both he and I are easier on Okrent and The Times that our commenters and emailers.
I actually think that Dan has gotten pretty good reviews in the blogosphere. (Sorry, Jay Rosen, I'm not going to give you links.) That will, of course, change, as soon as he or The Times pisses off assorted bloggers. But let's still give him points for responding to the issues you've raised directly with him.
I'd sure hate to have his mailbag.

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