Another journalist bemoans blogging

I've seen several pieces along this line:

BEIJING — The unofficial end to journalism as I know it may have come earlier this week, when my Globe and Mail sporty colleague Matt Sekeres and I were at the triathlon venue in the north end of the city, waiting for the event to start.

...

The race was about an hour away when young Mr. Sekeres said the five words I have most come to dread: "I'm going to blog this."

Let me first say that I think such pieces are mostly crap. Mostly.

That said, the most charitable thing I can say about the effect of blogging on journalism is.... it's not having one, not really, contra to what Ms. Blatchford is saying.

Look, blogging is a tool. The internet is a tool. If either of them cause the death of journalism (or of longer forms of writing, or anything else), it's because people chose to use them in ways that are/were detrimental to past journalistic practices.

Clearly blogging can augment and enhance traditional journalism; just as clearly, traditional journalism (especially newspapers) were suffering before the Rise of Blogs. Pieces like this one are often really about journalists upset about their own loss of privilege and prestige. For example:

It is not true that anyone can write. It is not true that anyone can write on deadline. It is not true that anyone can do an interview. It is not true that anyone can edit themselves and sort wheat from chaff.

Implicit in this is that writing/news production should be left only to professionals, and that we, the riff-raff, have no place in such an enterprise. I call bullshit; ten seconds on this site should convince you that the media is not perfect, and that sometimes, the great unwashed masses can correct the professionals.

(As an aside, there are a lot of things floating around now that are easily accessible that, when measured against traditional standards, are not that good. However, the fact that I can blog, and that a few of my friends can read it, means a hell of a lot to me. Anyway.)

I guess what I'd say - in addition to noting that journalists and journalism would be better off as populists rather than elitists - is that Ms. Blatchford paints with far too broad a brush here. She would get a lot more mileage if she bothered to be more specific about exactly how journalism is hurt by blogging, while simultaneously acknowledging that blogging can have a positive influence on the act of journalism, and b) that journalism - and even newswriting specifically - is suffering from a lot more than the appearance of blogs. As is, she's written a nice tantrum, but there's nothing new or compelling here.

h/t TG

Journamalism

From the DH:

Double Duty: Let's meet our citizen soldiers
By Jesse Skoubo
Albany Democrat-Herald

America is enamored with alter egos: Bruce Wayne is Batman, Miley Cyrus is Hannah Montana, and so on. In the mid-valley there are hundreds of everyday citizens who also have double lives. They are members of the National Guard.

These men and women are our neighbors, co-workers, friends and family. At the same time, they serve and protect our country at home and abroad. We often hear about those deployed overseas, but may not always connect them with the people we see every day.

I have no problem with the DH covering people in the National Guard; that's clearly newsworthy. I do have a problem with the use of the word 'our'. I always thought it was a no-no to put oneself in a news story, Hunter S. Thompson not withstanding. It suggests a lack of objectivity - and given that it doesn't happen often, I think that this is the instance in which it is happening is telling. It risks becoming cheerleading, which is not good journalism.

Evanite, the Greenway, and an Editorial all walk into a bar....

A GT editorial:

The deal offers a potentially huge payoff for Corvallis and its residents: The 32- foot-wide, quarter-mile-long strip of land on the Willamette River would allow the city to fill in a missing link in its riverfront trail system. The result would be an uninterrupted 3.5-mile path for pedestrians and cyclists from the north end of downtown to Willamette Landing.

In return, Evanite wants the city’s help in getting out from an extra layer of oversight of development requests on part of its 35-acre site on Crystal Lake Drive.

This has been the basis of the deal since the beginning. I am very much in favor of an unbroken trail from Willamette Landing to Michael's Landing.... but I'm skeptical of Evanite.

Specifically, I want to know exactly what regulations Evanite wants out of - is it really just building near the river? Or is there an environmental component? Is there a chance that the land near the river owned by Evanite contains some nasty pollutants that Evanite doesn't want to deal with? And why does the GT label it "extra"? Is there any basis for that, or is that word in there to give people the impression the regulations are, for some reason, unnecessary?

I can't say I've read every GT story on this issue, but I suspect I've seen most of them, and I can't remember ever hearing about possible environmental impact or about the regulations in any detail.

This editorial, of course, is no different. Given that we're in Corvallis, it would seem like a no-brainer to at least mention the potential environmental impacts, especially if any of the regulations in question deal with them. But no... and here is where I find myself agreeing just the tiniest bit with the incensed commenters: The GT does tend to show a rather strong pro-development/pro-business bias, often in its editorial slant.

But I can't just blame the GT for that and walk away. I'd bet money that the parent corporation, Lee Enterprises, actually has policy directives surrounding editorial stances. It's not unheard of, and Lee has a reputation as a very pro-business company.

I happen to think that the existence of such policies undermines the credibility of journalism, but what do I know? The GT tells me this is a good idea, conveniently omitting even the possibility of downsides, so I guess I should just be happy that I get a trail, right?

[/rant]

Observations on the Randleman Story

Observation #1: Without debating the journalistic merits of the level of detail in the recent story on Randleman, I think it was a bad move rhetorically to run that level of detail in the newspaper.

Why? I think it created more backlash than there would have been otherwise, and the story has become at least partially about the Express, and not about Randleman and how the whole thing was handled by the LPD and LCSD staff. Speaking of...

Observation #2: Why are more people not talking about the fact that a) at least two other officers had an idea of what was going on, yet b) neither is being formally disciplined? Oh, sure - Fiala got talked to by Schulte (and probably Healy), but under what circumstances should he have ever given Randleman the benefit of the doubt upon seeing the cars of female high students in Randleman's driveway on multiple occasions?

At the very least, I would think that would demand a very serious conversation with Randleman about what was going on, almost certainly followed by a VERY uncomfortable conversation with Schulte or Healy. The former seems to have happened. The fact that the latter did not happen - as far as I know - does not reflect well on Officer Fiala. Arguably the same could be said of OSP trooper Schott, though I used Fiala as the example because he's part of the LPD and lives near Randleman.

Observation #3: Police officers have a long history of closing ranks and protecting their own regardless of the nature of the incident (see, for example, almost any incident in which an officer shoots and kills an unarmed civilian and/or Tasers someone to death). Clearly, in this case, Randleman got thrown to the wolves - not only were the other LPD officers probably very, very upset with him, but, to be perfectly honest, they probably realized that there was no way to defend his behavior. And, of course, what Randleman did was wrong, and the LPD was right to investigate immediately, etc. etc. That should go without saying.

Back to the larger point: I'll bet ranks have closed around Fiala. The LPD is not going to punish him for this - they're going to deflect the blame onto Randleman. That strikes me as a shitty thing to do. It also strikes me as one of the reasons police officers get a bad reputation.

... adding, that it's certainly an understandable reaction from police officers, given their training, the fact that they are willing to put themselves in danger, their sometimes-rocky relationship with the public, etc. That doesn't make it right, but it is understandable.

Update: It strikes me that my last point might be better explained by noting that the LPD, like many police departments, is probably choosing to punish Fiala internally and informally (and I use the term 'punish' loosely). This is also understandable, but will also probably contribute to any negative reaction, as it provides the appearance of covering for someone's mistakes. Internal policing is tricky.

Taking it personally

In response to this ridiculous letter in the GT (it's the first one), I wrote my own letter. This is the important part:

I have to take issue with Jerry Duerksen’s July 23 letter defending landlords. The situation, at least for this seven-year Corvallis renter, is not the rosy picture Mr. Duerksen points out. A few years ago, I lived in one of the properties managed by his company. When I turned on the exterior water faucet, water leaked into the floor in my house, right where the baseboard heater was. Repeated letters to Duerksen and Associates got no response whatsoever, even when I cc’d them to the actual owner of the property. Needless to say, I didn’t stay long, and I’ll never rent from Duerksen again.

What does the GT do? It asks Duerksen to comment on my letter, and then runs his comment below mine:

Editor’s note: Jerry Duerksen’s reply: Dennis Dugan was an excellent tenant for over a year. He received most if not all of his deposit back and left the apartment in excellent condition. Obviously the water leak was repaired, or it would still be leaking today.

Anecdotally, it seems like the GT only ever goes to people in positions of power - city officials or business owners - to give them a sneak peek at a letter or op/ed and allow them to respond. Needless to say, if this is true, I don't think it's good practice. I feel a little sandbagged.

On the other hand, Duerksen's response makes him look even more out of touch. If the best he can do is claim that the water leak has been repaired at some point since I moved out (which has been a full two years), and that I was an excellent tenant, then.... why even respond? He didn't dispute my claim; he just complimented me and sounded clueless about the problem. To me, this just makes his original letter even less credible.

The Man From Hope, Special Media Edition

Specifically, CNN's Candy Crowley's. From Washington Monthly (via Hullabaloo):

Candy Crowley on CNN: Barack Obama was, indeed, awesome in his Berlin speech tonight, but watch out! Americans might decide he was a little too awesome.

Not only is it easy for me to read that as "uppity black man," but it fits right into that ludicrous right-wing narrative that daring to dream of a better future is crazy, or impossible, or stupid, or all three. You know, the one I made note of here and here.

And this from CNN.

Can we admit that the mainstream media is simply not liberal in any meaningful way? Please?

Media Covering Media

From quite the column on covering FOX News, a point that arouses my (tiny, ineffectual) wrath:

Many of the television-beat reporters I called had horror stories [regarding covering FOX], but few were willing to be quoted. In the last several years, reporters from The Associated Press, several large newspapers and various trade publications have said they were shut out from getting their calls returned because of stories they had written. Editors do not want to hear why your calls are not being returned, they just want you to fix the problem, or perhaps they will fix it by finding someone else to do your job.

Let's assume for a moment this is true. I don't think that's much of a stretch. What does it suggest?

It suggests one of at least two things are happening. One, that editors, by and large, don't realize that FOX is not playing by the same rules as everyone else; or, two, that the editors who have this kind of response know but just don't care.

I have problems with either one. FOX, as an organization, clearly harms journalism. As such, I would have expected other journalists and/or news organizations to step in and do something, much in the same way I keep waiting for professional pharmacists' associations to step in and restore the integrity of their profession by telling those who refuse to dispense morning-after or birth control pills to stop the nonsense or get out of the business. (In other words, for the professionals in a field to want to have a say in defining and enforcing said definition regarding what it means to work in a field; as far as I'm concerned, that's the best way to maintain integrity. Call it the professional equivalent of a licensing program, like those used for electricians or contractors.)

However, that doesn't seem to be happening. I don't travel in journalism circles enough to know if there are even many journalists who even see this is an issue, so I can't really comment on that. But from here, it seems like journalists - and more importantly, editors - who play along with FOX's insanity are, at the least, not standing in the way of FOX damaging the profession of journalism, and why they would do so is beyond me.

Any journalists out there want to take a stab at explaining this to me? What am I missing?

Why I care about journalism, the short version

A few people have asked me why I'm so into this whole OSU College of Engineering ranking thing. One reason is the simple fact that OSU is being disingenuous insofar as they are not necessarily broadcasting the fact that the ranking Ron Adams gives out is determined by... Ron Adams!

The other reason - and the ostensible point of this post - is that I care about journalism, and I see the GT as having fallen down on this one.

1) The free flow and dissemination of information is, I believe, paramount to the functioning of any kind of democracy - direct, radical, representative, faux, etc. People cannot make good decisions without knowledge. (Note that this does not lead directly to the necessity of newspapers, or even journalism as we currently understand it. Also note that knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient condition for good decision-making.)

2) Journalism is one (historically contingent) way to spread information. I am not blind to the fact that media consolidation, capitalism and the Internet have wreaked havoc on the practice and economic feasibility of, say, newspapers. Neither am I blind to the fact that this is not entirely a bad thing, as providing new channels for the distribution of information (blogs, indymedia) has been awesome. Neither am I blind to the fact that corporate overlords like Lee Enterprises are hurting what I would consider the practices of good journalism as much as they are supporting the existence of newspapers.

3) That said, I still think there is a role for the practice of professional journalism. I would like to see professional journalism continue, as I still think it can play a large part of the role of spreading information, and thus in maintaining some semblance of the ability to make informed decisions (even if the idea that America is actually democratic is laughable, which it is).

4) Ergo, I am concerned when I see the GT do something that does not follow what I understand to be good journalistic practice. To be honest, I am surprised others are not as concerned.

OSU's internal College of Engineering ranking system

Look what I found:

Innovation capacity metric = 40 x (number of BS degrees/average number of BS degrees for top25) + 10 x (number of MS degrees/average number of MS degrees for top 25) + 20x (PhD degrees/average number of PhD degrees for top 25) + 30 x (research expenditures/average research expenditures for top 25)

As was pointed out to me, there is no mention of quality here. In fact, there is no mention of anything besides "more" - more students pushed through and more research dollars spent, with no way to take in to account quality of education or success/type of research.

In other words, it's not a very good standalone measure of the quality of a College of Engineering. It's a decent measure of productivity alone, but that's it. Also note: It says nothing about the faculty.

Second, the Corvallis Gazette-Times made a few mistakes on this one (as I not-so-subtly insinuated here). It has printed a number claiming to be the ranking of the CoE based on this metric at least once, if not twice (and in the second case, you don't even want to know where the writer of that piece initially claimed to have gotten the number for OSU's CoE ranking; it's all I can do not to post it, it's so unprofessional). In neither case did the GT even bother to mention where OSU's supposed ranking came from. That was mistake number one - sourcing a number like that should have been a no-brainer.

Mistake number two happened in at least the first case: If the GT knew that OSU was using an internally-devised number (and I have reason to believe they did), they should have asked how the metric was devised, and upon figuring that out, spent a sentence or two noting that - even in an article about the death of Martin Kelley.

I'll be honest: I don't actually get frustrated with the GT very often. It's got a pretty low reputation among almost everyone I know not in journalism circles, and I usually find myself defending the paper. Not today.

The (televised) press is broken

"...the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings."

Journalism in Six Words - A Poynter Contest

Shamelessly taken from Miranda Writes, journalism in six words:

• Doing more with less since 1690
• We’ll always have Paris … or Britney
• It’s how I change the world.
• Get it right, write it tight
• They’ll miss us when we’re gone
• Feed the watchdog, euthanize the lapdog
• Who, what, when, where, why, Web
• Facts, schmacts … how is my hair?
• Dirty commie latte-sipping liberal scum
• Please stop griping, now start typing

I like #1, #3 and #7.

Question

Why don't journalists everywhere publicly repudiate Fox News?

Inspired by this.

Quote of the Day

"Sometimes, though, the professional outlook can become a disadvantage, preventing the very people who have the most at stake - the professionals themselves - from understanding major changes to their profession. In particular, when a profession has been created as the result of some scarcity, as with librarians or television programmers, the professionals are often the last ones to see it when that scarcity goes away. It is easier to understand that you face competition than obsolescence."

From Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody.

Guess which profession he's talking about.

GT vs. DH: Jetboat Racing on the Willamette

Crallspace points out that there's a slight discrepancy in two stories covering the recent cancellation of jetboat races on the Willamette.

The races were cancelled, as far as I know, due to complaints and public outcry regarding the noise and pollution.

How the DH story explains the cancellation and opposition:

Gary Weaver of Crabtree, who serves on the association board and had lobbied to have the races based in Albany, said the event was called off because it had not yet heard from the State Marine Board and was running out of time.

...

The planned event got opposition from Willamette Riverkeeper, a Portland-based conservation group which suggested Detroit Lake as a better venue, the Corvallis Gazette-Times reported.

How the GT handles the same:

“(The Marine Board) just had too many letters of complaint,” said Tim Harding, SOPBA vice president. “The end result was to take it to a community that wanted us.”

...

Ashley Massey, spokeswoman for the Marine Board, said the agency had received more than 1,000 e-mails and letters about the race. She said the letters had not yet been tallied to determined how many were against the event and how many were in support.

...

Conservation organization Willamette Riverkeeper encouraged its 1,500 members to urge the Marine Board to deny the application. The group officially opposed the race and argued that a better location would be Detroit Lake or some other body of water where motorboating is more common.

Do you see the discrepancy? The DH story completely omits any context as to why there was opposition or who the opposition was (it was more complex than Willamette Riverkeeper), instead relying on pro-jetboat sources.

It reads like a retyped press release.

This is not meant to be an attack on the reporter who wrote the DH story. There are plenty of possible reasons the story was garbage that have nothing to do with the reporter.

However, the fact remains that the DH story was bad journalism. It lacked important information and context regarding the event.

I wonder if we'll see a follow-up or correction. Something tells me the DH editor won't see the need.

Death of a Newspaper

Eric Alterman has a great essay in The New Yorker. I've been meaning to blog about it for a week or more, but.... I just haven't. Instead, I'm going to link and excerpt:

In a recent episode of “The Simpsons,” a cartoon version of Dan Rather introduced a debate panel featuring “Ron Lehar, a print journalist from the Washington Post.” This inspired Bart’s nemesis Nelson to shout, “Haw haw! Your medium is dying!”

“Nelson!” Principal Skinner admonished the boy.

“But it is!” was the young man’s reply.

Nelson is right. Newspapers are dying; the evidence of diminishment in economic vitality, editorial quality, depth, personnel, and the over-all number of papers is everywhere. What this portends for the future is complicated. Three years ago, Rupert Murdoch warned newspaper editors, “Many of us have been remarkably, unaccountably complacent . . . quietly hoping that this thing called the digital revolution would just limp along.” Today, almost all serious newspapers are scrambling to adapt themselves to the technological and community-building opportunities offered by digital news delivery...

...

Finally, we need to consider what will become of those people, both at home and abroad, who depend on such journalistic enterprises to keep them safe from various forms of torture, oppression, and injustice. “People do awful things to each other,” the veteran war photographer George Guthrie says in “Night and Day,” Tom Stoppard’s 1978 play about foreign correspondents. “But it’s worse in places where everybody is kept in the dark.” Ever since James Franklin’s New England Courant started coming off the presses, the daily newspaper, more than any other medium, has provided the information that the nation needed if it was to be kept out of “the dark.” Just how an Internet-based news culture can spread the kind of “light” that is necessary to prevent terrible things, without the armies of reporters and photographers that newspapers have traditionally employed, is a question that even the most ardent democrat in John Dewey’s tradition may not wish to see answered.

David Simon the slow decline of newspapers

This is a good great essay:

And now, with about twenty-five inches filed and sent to the state desk, I have come to rest, waiting while editors in the four o’clock shape the next day’s local front. I am sweating profusely, unsure what to do with my hands, my face, my soul. A Styrofoam cup of water sits in front of me, untouched. More laughter from the conference room, and finally they emerge -- Phelps and the others.

He looks at me, pulls on his mustache, frowns.

Dead. I am dead to him.

And then Phelps turns and whispers something to the tall editor beside him, something about me, clearly, because the tall guy is heading my way. I rise and actually drop my eyes. It will be fast, I tell myself. It will be fast and then I can go.

“You’re Simon?”

“Yes.”

“Good story today.”

I wait.

I've been putting off adding The Wire to my list of things to watch despite hearing nothing but good things about it, but this pretty much seals the deal. Anyone who writes at that level gets my attention.

More Ways to Change the Newspaper Business

Ted's "Ten Point Plan to Reinvent The Newspaper Business."

My two most notable:

6. Be BOLD now. Take the Top 10 big newspapers and join together and then acquire something massive that can be shared. Why aren't the newspaper companies banding together to acquire Yahoo as an example? Buy a big social networking site and launch a cross platform classifieds network within to compete with eBay and Craigslist. Acquire Twitter and create real time news and classified for sale network. Do something big and meaningful. Your shareholders will love you for it.

...

8. Get rid of senior editors. Turn them into algorithmic managers. Editors are passé. What is needed is a team of people that know how to work and create blog rolls and how to get the content up high into the algorithms so that when a consumer searches the newspaper's content it comes up high in the rankings. Knowing statistically what content gets the best click through across all media is a key deliverable. Newspapers need math majors running big swaths of the organization. There are too many English majors in key positions in love with the sound of their own voices. Math is king in the new world order and having managers that understand the big algorithms in the sky will redefine journalism for our next generation and redefine circulation into syndication.

I should clarify: I dislike both of these ideas, but I appreciate their boldness.

[LCSD] A Thought

Larry Coonrod and/or Jennifer Moody should write an op/ed in the DH or Express in response to Debi's claims regarding secret information. After all, I believe reporters are allowed in executive session.

Am I suggesting one or both of the reporters break that privilege? No, not really - but they, more than anyone outside the LCSD, know if there is any truth to what Shimmin is saying or not.

So what about it? Can we get the shining light of truth in here, or does journalistic "neutrality" require that you let a lie stand?

What happens when two principles collide?

[Hasso Hering] Ducking Responsibility Like Pro

Hering:

The old adage says that all economic news is bad news. This certainly proved true again earlier this week.

The price of oil and gasoline was soaring. The value of the dollar was sinking. And the chairman of the Federal Reserve said the Fed may again cut interest rates to banks because the economy showed signs of weakening.

It’s all connected. The price of gas is so high because of the rising price of imported oil. Oil keeps costing more in dollars because the dollar is worth less. The dollar is worth less because the Fed keeps lowering rates. The Fed lowers rates because the economy is slowing. It’s slowing because housing has slumped. And maybe housing slumped in part because gas costs so much more, driving up inflation.

No wonder some commentators have started worrying about a return of stagflation, barely remembered from the distant past, during the Ford and Carter administrations.

Somebody had better break the cycle before all of this gets out of hand. (hh)

Yup. Someone should do something.

Like, say, Bush?

What about Bush-appointed Fed Chair Ben Bernanke?

How about - be careful, this one's a doozy - Congress?

This is a shit editorial. There's really not a more polite way of saying that. The fact that it ignores something so obvious that its omission can only be intentional makes it rather pointless (why bring up the problem if you can't even point in the general direction of a solution?), and as a result, it's bad journalism. It's a waste of the reader's time.

If I were a journalism instructor, I would use this as an example of what not to do with all that valuable real estate on the editorial page.

Jeebus.

[Journalism] The Nichification of the Media

OK, this turned out to be much longer than I thought it would be. I'm going to preface it by saying I'm not going to address the question of reporting in this post. Maybe in another one. I'll also say that thus far, this is a bit disjointed. Please flame away. That said....

I think this post is pretty accurate.... probably:

Media are mutating from mass to niche. OK. We get that.

...

That recess is a subtraction from the wall and that subtractive quality is what struck me this morning when I read a blurb in Paid Content announcing that a former Boston Globe political columnist will become managing editor of Politicker.com, a soon-to-be network of state-specific political news websites that appear poised to sprout from the New York Observer, the political weekly based in Manhattan.

1. The move from mass to niche is, indeed, correct, and is in no small part web/technology-driven. The ease with which information is moved around means that "newspapers" are less and less useful (or viable) as a way to organize information. Newspapers are tied to specific locations, to geography. The web is not. Which one will win in the long run among people who have grown up on the web?

2. Please note that #1 does not mean that newspapers will die out completely. The newspaper as a singular focal point of news, as an object around which content is structured, will undergo (and is already undergoing) significant changes, potentially losing most of its status.

This is also pretty astute:

Rather this announcement is a case is exemplary of the subtraction that has started and will continue to hit the journalism side of media just as it has already rocked the business side of media. We’re all familiar with this latter concept. Craig’s List started to subtract classified ad revenues; Monster.com et all started to poach on the job-wanted ads; Yahoo and its cohort have siphoned off display advertising, and so on.

Think of the Associated Press as the predecessor to this movement on the content side. Now add a heavy dose of topical breakdown to that, and you're getting somewhere.

More:

[T]he inexorable power of nichification is driven by the impulse toward efficiency. Thats what economics is all about. The drive for efficiency. And in so many walks of life specialization is efficient. Boring, maybe, but efficient.

This is interesting. I think it's correct, but I also deplore it. Newspapers, for some reason (a relatively privileged position in society, perhaps) are pretty far behind most other social institutions when it comes to fragmentation and specialization as part of a quest for greater efficiency (after all, Taylorism was so 1920s... or at least 1970s).

I posted once, I think (though I can't find it at the moment) about the nature of modern capitalism: It likes specialization. It likes to break things into tinier and tinier pieces, each more specialized and specific than the tier before.

You can see this is modern production techniques, the creation of ever-smaller niche markets for products, and even in the further specialization of job roles.

The belief, of course, is that same efficiency that underlies MiniMedia's point. And that same efficiency is, I think, anathema to good journalism - and to the creation of a good newspaper. (It's also anathema to human nature, to being a grounded human being, but that's another post.)

MiniMedia's conclusion:

How well does that analogy transfer to content and how does all this play out? How the hell would I know. But I am certain that every force in the world of media is prying loose the mortar in that wall I depicted above, and popping out stones at an accelerating pace. What I lay awake some nights wondering is: how many stones have to pop out before the godamn wall breaks?

I vacillate on my answer to these sorts of question, but, as of today, I think the wall breaking will come in the form of a radical shift in the business side of journalism, in how people are paid and what kind of name is on the check (or direct deposit slip, ha-ha). It will be less noticeable when it comes to the act of reporting (and here I differ from a lot of folks who are talking about this on the web). Certainly there is, and will continue to be, an upswing in the use of multimedia (electronic paper, anyone?).... but I still think the fundamental idea behind most media - reporting the events of the world - will not change.

Part of me expects a rapid and radical proliferation of content-specific niche organizations, like the one mentioned in MiniMedia's blog post. Those orgs would then sell, AP-style, to other organizations that simply collated content to produce a geographically grounded product. It would mean the outsourcing of almost all news production from the newspaper company in question. (Here I'm thinking of places like Politico or perhaps The Hill.)

This has already happened in radio, to some extent, and with disastrous consequences. Many radio shows are produced in advance and in a different state in which they are played, which removes radio as a social medium, as participatory, as well as removing the possibility for local, updated content.

Newspapers, on the other hand, are becoming more participatory in a sense, with the proliferation of comment-enabled websites and acceptance of the occasional bit of user-generated content. So that difference exists, and is important.

But what about the hyperlocal? I think it will still be produced locally, though certainly there is a question of resources - small newspapers can rarely afford to fund quality investigative journalism, or even comprehensive coverage (and certainly both the Lebanon Express and OSU's Daily Barometer are examples of this, albeit very different ones). There's also the question of user-generated content and what role that will play on the hyperlocal level.

I think users will have to take over more of a role. It's Indymedia meets the SPJ, and there's already one hell of a collision going on (see, for example, the reporting being done at leading political blogs like TPM or Firedoglake). But both sides are going to have to play nice sooner rather than later if anyone is interested in quality journalism surviving.

So what's my verdict? Change is a-comin', and as Mark over at Notes From a Teacher says on a near-daily basis, we (as a society) need to start changing the way we train and teach people to participate in the world of journalism - if that, is we are interested in seeing journalism survive in a useful form. I, for one, am definitely interested in that.