Few people are in a position to call a new media spade a spade like Michael Arrington. Take this wonderful TechCrunch post that he calls, “Let’s Just Declare TV Dead and Move On:”

Regardless, the writing is on the wall. Sure, YouTube and CBS partnered up to declare that CBS clips on Youtube actually increased overall tv ratings, but that is almost certainly hogwash. It’s a good diversionary tactic for YouTube as they continue to grow and the networks stand around with a funny, confused look on their face. But at the end of the day, people want to consume content without the friction of having to sit down in front of a television at an appointed time. That friction doesn’t disappear just because a show clip is up on YouTube. People want to see the whole show on YouTube. There is a fundamental shift in consumer behavior going on - and the question is no longer if, but rather when, more television consumption will occur via the Internet than traditional broadcast and cable television.

I happen to agree that the network’s “glow” from its YouTube deal is a bit hard to understand, because the audience clout is with the aggregator today, not the content creator. The networks would be better off creating their own aggregator, but I’ve been down that useless road before.

Doug Rushkoff writes of a fascinating incident that’s sure to spark debate as we continue to evolve to a truly informed citizenry. Here’s the story: A bicycling blogger had an incident with an SUV in New York. The blogger was upset that the guy almost ran him over, so he stopped his bike in front of the guy and demanded an audience with the fellow. He got off his bike, the guy ran it over, the blogger got his license plate, and his commenters eventually outed the guy and even posted an e-mail exchange. Turns out he’s the CEO of a software company.

Go read the original story and especially the comments. It’s pretty amazing stuff.

Rushkoff calls it “Street Justice” and points out that using the internet to “catch” a perp has ramifications that go beyond the deed.

While the mob’s action may not always prove benevolent, the power of a group of committed and angry people - working without top-down leadership - shouldn’t be underestimated, particularly in an age when so much information is available so quickly. This is a markedly different use of media than, say, the exploitation of radio in Rwanda to instigate mobs to round up targets and cut them to pieces. For in the case of broadcast media, it was more a matter of provocation and instigation than here on the Internet, where it looks a lot more like empowering a group of formerly voiceless or powerless individuals to take the collective action they had wanted to, all along.

Still, given the anonymity of the net, a case like this could as easily be fabricated as actual - making the crowd an easy tool for the abuse of an innocent. I’d have to believe that when mistakes like that are inevitably made, however, the crowd will use even greater effort to punish whoever abused their good will, and - if possible - repair the damage done.

A lot of people apparently think this incident is a dangerous use of technology, but I agree with Rushkoff. I agree, because I have faith in people that our institutions lack. Remember, modernism teaches that only rationality and the rule of law can overcome (ignorant) mob rule. These people are hardly ignorant, however, and that’s what’s new in our culture and what poses such remarkable promise for tomorrow.

Meanwhile, watch your step. Empowered people are watching.

Several friends have written to ask if the Palmer’s Meadow fables are suitable for their children. They’re not children’s books in the traditional sense, because the prose is somewhat lofty at times, and the themes are adult: self-searching, racism, violence, self-pity, and so forth.

However, I think they’re not only appropriate for older children who like to read, I think they teach valuable lessons that such children can take with them as they grow. Anybody who’s capable, for example, of reading the Narnia series would enjoy the Palmer’s Meadow fables. So let that be your guide.

If you want to know more about the books, read the author interview. For example, they are not Christian books, per se, but they’re not “unChristian” books either, and I can’t imagine they would interfere with any family’s attempts to teach their own faith. On the contrary, the teachings here are so universal that they would support and undergird individual religious beliefs.

So if you’re thinking of unique gifts for your older kids, put these books on your list.

My name is Terry Heaton, and I approve this message.

A lot of people ask me how my squirrels are doing, so here’s an update. For those who don’t know, I’ve been feeding the squirrels who live outside my apartment in Grapevine, Texas, since I moved here in August. My office overlooks the balcony, from which I’ve built a bridge to nearby trees. Every squirrel for miles around knows to come here by now, and they go through so many peanuts that I’ve had to start buying them in bulk.

Well, corn and peanut fed squirrels can get a little, ah, husky, so I thought you’d enjoy a little photo montage. Of course, they could just be getting ready for winter, or maybe that’s the same thing as being well-fed. I only wish you could see these fatties fly around the trees. The branches do bend just a bit now.

(click to embiggen)

One of the most important strategic moves any local media company can make to win the local Media 2.0 war is to take control of its own destiny and not rely entirely on third-party identity, networks or technology. Regular readers here probably won’t be surprised to learn that this is much harder than you might think, and it’s especially the case with the internet and local television.

In Boston, long time broadcasting icon WBZ-TV has decided it’s time to part ways with its marketing identity as CBS4 and return to using its call letters. CBS4 President and General Manager Ed Piette said the decision was easy.

“Employee feedback and comprehensive market research made it clear—combining the well respected, local identity of WBZ-TV with the strength of CBS, the #1 television network, is an important step in the station’s growth.”

Clearly, this move is a marketing decision, and it’s terribly smart. However, if Mr. Piette’s desire is genuinely to embrace a local identity, he’s going to have to disconnect more than just call letters from the network that owns his station.

There are great business advantages to group ownership, not the least of which is consolidation of services, systems and technology. But the paradox of group dynamics is that individuals lose their identity, so WBZ’s problem is more than its call letters. This is painfully apparent in the online world.

Some smart station groups are beginning to realize that the more online local media is controlled from a distance, the greater the difficulty in being flexible, adaptive and open to change. They’re also beginning to awaken to the great reality of networked websites and deals: much of the traffic comes from outside the market. Ad networks are interested in traffic, not necessarily local traffic. Advertisers are getting smarter, and the local stations are increasingly going to have difficulty in presenting their online “ratings” case to them.

This is one of the reasons I don’t think it’s necessarily smart of 176 newspapers to align with Yahoo to turn over local content to the big portal. They’ll get some revenue out of the deal, but the bigger issue is strategy. If people can get their local news via Yahoo, they don’t need to visit any property operated by the newspaper. You can argue that this is a necessary evil, and I’d agree with you in part. However, investing entirely in an unbundled strategy can backfire unless you’re very smart about what’s taking place beneath the surface (a.k.a. JD Lasica’s “personal media revolution”).

Moreover, I would argue that each community is unique and that to capture that identity online, local media companies must have control over their own technology and the people who run that technology. Every market has excellent programmers, Flash artists and, yes, the geek power to enable stations to do their own thing. The cost simply isn’t what it used to be, but cost really isn’t the point. Control is what’s missing in most television station web applications, and this can be fatal in trying to form a Media 2.0 strategy.

In Chicago, I work with the Bonneville radio station group — a very smart bunch of folks. Radio stations don’t produce a lot of web content, so they have to be able to tie their sites to ACTION that is originated on-the-air. Online interactivity is at the heart of the 2.0 disruption, and this group is able to create some remarkable and highly local applications, because they control everything about their sites, including the hosting. The group employs three PHP programmers who go with sales people on calls to advertisers, so that they can design, build and deploy cool and advertiser-centric web applications.

There is no opportunity to do this, if your web strategy is entirely controlled elsewhere.

The opportunities to do local media online are indeed remarkable. It’s a land grab right now, one that broadcasters are ceding to outside internet pure play companies simply because they won’t or can’t get in there are get their hands dirty.

WBZ story links: Lost Remote | Boston Herald

From a New York Times article about Brian Stelter and his wonderful TVNewser blog comes this outrageous quote from a high-level broadcast executive:

“The whole industry pays attention to his blog,” said Jeffrey W. Schneider, a senior vice president of ABC News. “It would not surprise me if I refreshed my browser 30 to 40 times a day.”

Obviously, Mr. Schneider has NEVER HEARD OF RSS and is living in ancient web history! I mean, who refreshes a browser anymore? Hello!

I find it amazing how many mainstream media people run from RSS and use the excuse “nobody knows what it is.” There’s a wonderful DirectTV ad with Jessica Simpson in her Dukes of Hazard role where the character says, “…it’s available in 1080i. I don’t even know what that is, but I want it.” If the industry can teach people about high definition terms, surely it can teach people about RSS.

Let me preface this by saying that I’m not a lawyer. The commentary below is based on years of observing trends in the new media world and interviewing lawyers and legal groups that support the free speech rights of bloggers and of those who respond to bloggers via commenting technology.

One of the biggest reasons television stations are reluctant to experiment in the 2.0 world is that we view interacting with our audience as a maze of sticky legal issues. Everywhere I go, I encounter the same question about liability in the land of the blogosphere. This is a big problem as we attempt to wage competitive war against the real intruders into our space — outside internet pure play companies — because they don’t share our worries.

The problem is that we’re thinking like media companies who “publish” content for which we are responsible. I’ve long argued — and other observers have agreed — that we must begin looking at common carrier law in finding shelter in the evolving media landscape. You can’t sue the phone company, for example, if someone uses the telephone to harass you. Publishers and broadcasters are certainly responsible for what they publish and broadcast, but is a stand-alone web forum that essentially belongs to users a publication?

This idea of common carrier similarities is a part of the Communications Decency Act, and it was that precedent that a Federal Court in Chicago used last week to deny a suit against Craig Newmark and Craigslist, the online classifieds portal that’s causing fits for the newspaper industry. Civil rights groups in the Windy City sued Newmark over what were obvious racially-motivated rental housing listings, violations of federal fair-housing rules.

The court held that Craigslist wasn’t liable for the postings, citing section 230 of the CDA. That law shields providers and users of “interactive computer services” from liability so long as they make “good faith efforts” to restrict access to material that is considered “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.”

This ruling is going to be appealed, but I firmly believe the CDA will prevail and that perhaps even stronger legislation will one day be written. All of the rules of cultural modernism are being turned upside-down by technology, and we’re going to have to find ways to deal with both copyright and liability in the new world. Craig Newmark has done a wonderful thing in providing a free classifieds platform that allows people to connect and do commerce. It is so enormous that it’s impossible for them to police every entry made, and I think it’s ridiculous to expect such a thing in today’s world. Much of the interactive web is indeed like the phone company, and it makes little sense to hold applications like this accountable when all they do is provide the means. If Craigslist — or any of a host of other such companies — are responsible for people posting illegal ads, then Ma Bell is certainly responsible when any form of crime — including terrorism — is conducted via its pipes.

Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote of the decision and offers insight for the future:

Section 230 plays a key role in fostering free speech on the Internet. Without the broad protections stemming from Section 230, few would risk creating a Website that permitted unfettered input from the public. This does not mean that people can’t pursue legal action if they think a Craigslist post is discriminatory — they can. But instead of suing the forum where the statement was made, they should sue the misguided landlord who made the discriminatory statement in the first place.

The court held that Section 230 protected Craigslist, but nevertheless questioned the reasoning followed by numerous courts which have broadly interpreted the statute. Instead, this court envisioned a narrower protection, sufficient to protect against the claims at issue, but opening the door for later courts to limit Section 230’s important and necessary protections. In doing so, the court misreads the key cases, and creates a needless limitation that is contrary to the plain reading of Section 230, the intent of Congress and the needs to have open forums on the Internet.

The vast majority of other cases have reached the right conclusion, including all the appeals court, to decide the issue, so the impact of this court’s analysis is limited. Moreover, it would not be surprising if the Lawyer’s Committee appealed, giving the appeals court the opportunity to affirm the judgment and correct the reasoning. We’ll be sure to be there as a friend of the court.

These are very important legal times we’re in, and it’s important to pay attention. However, fear of POTENTIAL liability should not — and cannot — keep us from entering a space now dominated by outside enterprises who don’t share our fear. This is the battleground of Media 2.0, and we simply must not give it away by default.

If we’re going to create a web business or application that allows people to post without supervision, then we need to make it hard for them to do so without an identity. And having done that, the best approach is to keep our hands off it, because if we screen comments, for example, it’s a publication. It’s either a carrier of speech or it’s a publication, and how we approach it is what defines it in the end.

We must be careful as we proceed, but proceed we must.

It is with great joy that I announce that my books are now available for ordering. Delivery from the first printing will be on December 10th, so if you want to make sure you’re a part of that, you need to place your order now. They’re small books, and I think we’ve priced them fairly. My desire is that they be read, not that I strike it rich in the process.

As I mentioned previously, these stories are fables about life as told through insect characters in a mystical place called Palmer’s Meadow. The themes are adult, so they aren’t children’s books (although I think they’d make great animated tales).

There’s plenty to read at the Palmer’s Meadow website, including an interview with the author (Hey, that’s ME!), but here’s a summary of each story.

The Butterfly Tree is the story of Conrad, the thinking caterpillar. He’s unlike others of his kind, because he’s been gifted with the ability to think and reason. Rather than automatically accepting the fate of all caterpillars — the dark unknown of chrysalis — Conrad runs from it and, in so doing, flees the destiny of one with such a gift. He runs afoul of the gangster who runs a brothel at the top of the tree and endangers himself — and all of his kind — before facing his ultimate fear. It’s a lesson for people struggling with decisions in life.

The Hoppers of Palmer’s Meadow is a story of the danger of assuming to know the will of God. Saul and Gregory are grasshopper brothers and heirs to the throne of the Hoppers. Gregory is the natural leader but corrupt at core. Saul is equally capable of leading, but the elders have faith that Gregory is the Creator’s choice. It’s a story of locust swarms, racial inequality, violence and love, and one that exposes the arrogance of reading “signs” as evidence of being special in the eyes of God.

Princess of the Pond is everybody’s favorite story, a lesson in the dangers of self-pity. Donata, the damselfly princess, emerges from the water as a cripple and quickly becomes the laughing stock of the dragonflies and damselflies. Rejected even by her prince, she’s befriended by lovable misfits and eventually becomes the pawn of the evil scorpion Beelzebug in a plot to destroy the balance of life in the meadow. In order to prevent disaster, she must overcome her obsession with self and discover that genuine wholeness exists on the inside and can spread to that which is on the outside.

Present in each story is the wise sage of the meadow, Prometheus, the great moth, and his sidekick, Luna. It is to Prometheus that the residents of the meadow turn when their internal struggles lead them to external crises that seem impossible to overcome.

If you’re only going to order one book, I suggest you read Princess, but you’ll end up wanting them all. If you buy all three together, we cut the price to $10 each. They are a series, and that’s the way I’d prefer they be purchased.

The holidays are upon us, and these make great gifts. So what are you waiting for? Get on over to the Website and buy, buy, buy! (I’m so bad at this stuff)

Josh Wolf has been in jail for almost three months now. His crime? Refusal to turn over videotape of (perhaps) crimes being committed by (perhaps) anarchists that government prosecutors want to do their job. Josh’s defense is he’s a journalist and must protect his sources. A Federal Appeals court turned down his request for a rehearing this week, and Josh may end up in jail longer than any journalist in modern history.

And yet, we’re not hearing the same kind of hue and cry from the journalist community that we did for, say, Judith Miller. That’s because Wolf is a blogger.

Well, the New York Times is now calling him a “freelance video journalist and blogger.”

I guess that makes it okay to write about the guy, so I’ve decided there is a pecking order in the world of journalism — a hierarchy that gives points for professional status.

1. Big time journalist — one whose credentials are of national or global scope. Must have a book to qualify for this elite status.
2. Real journalist — anybody else who works for a mainstream media company. Wishes to be big time. Contemplating a book deal.
3. Freelance journalist — one who works for a mainstream company on an assignment basis. Not quite real. Wishes to be big time.
4. Near journalist — any student studying to be one of the above. Wishes to be big time.
5. Source — any person who works with a journalist to provide information. Wishes to write a book and be big time.
6. Tipster — less than a source, because all he/she does is provide tips. Wants to be close to the big time.
7. Witness — not a tipster, because events brought he/she into contact with journalism. Yearns for 15 minutes of fame in the big time.
8. Just a guy — any person who perhaps has a cellphone and can help the process. Wishes only to be paid, by the big time.
9. Readers/viewers — people who consume journalism. Oblivious to all of the above and don’t really care.
10. Blogger — on the list, but not really a journalist.

Sigh. No wonder Josh doesn’t get any props (except as a freelance video journalist).

The title of this post is a key to understanding the blogosphere’s significance in the new media world. While mainstream media attempts to create their own “blogosphere” or somehow harness its energy through so-called “user-generated” content plays, the hard truth is that it cannot be owned from without.

This was clearly evidenced yesterday in Nashville, when the young woman who writes Nashville is Talking for WKRN-TV called in sick.

A little background: WKRN employed Brittney Gilbert, a local blogger, 18 months ago to write NiT. This gave the project street creds with the blogosphere, because they already knew her, and she wasn’t being restricted in what she could write. The station also pays a local blogger $100 and gives them a login/password to access the Movable Type software and “fill-in” for Brittney on weekends. That way, the site is always fresh. It is, after all, THE aggregator of the Nashville area blogosphere.

Fast forward to yesterday. Brittney called in sick, so Adam Kleinheider — another WKRN blogger who writes the Volunteer Voters aggregator — dropped this note:

Your beloved BrittneyG is feeling a bit peeked this morning. If there are any guest bloggers out there still possessing a valid login, go ahead and run wild today with some NiT appropriate postings.

What happened next could only happen in the blogosphere. Eight different people with logins jumped to Brittney’s rescue and filled the site with posts. From home, Brittney also chimed in, and the NiT continued its wonderful record of monitoring what the blogosphere is talking about.

Brittney is sick again today, but she wrote this morning to tell me about yesterday and that she’s not worried about the site today.

Adam emailed to ask if he should ask some of the guest bloggers who still had active passwords if they’d like to post a few things. I said yes. Before I could make a post of my own listing those who could post to NIT, Katherine Coble had already made 3 posts. It was wonderful to see after I’d woken up from a nap, complete with labored breathing, that the site had been updated regularly all day. Even into the evening!

The guest blogger for this weekend was more than happy to sub for me today, as well. Everyone just jumped in and helped out. It was a wonderful mix of posts from different voices, and it didn’t throw off the rhythm of the site at all. The traffic only took a very slight dip, which is wonderful.

The local bloggers jumped in, because they feel a sense of ownership in the site. Let this be a lesson to media companies wishing a plate at the table of Media 2.0. The personal media revolution lives and breathes on its own. Your BEST position is one of supporting the life form, not trying to harness or control it. If you can keep your distance, it will reward you in ways you cannot imagine.

I’m on the road today for a presentation, so I won’t be blogging much. I did, however, want to share an event from my weekend visit to Nashville that was, well, a little jolting.

The high school journalism conference was at the Opryland Hotel, a Gaylord Hotel property of some renown. It costs $10 to park in their lot regardless of how long you stay, but I was surprised with the attendant asked me for $10.93 upon exiting.

“You tax parking?” I asked the fellow.

“Yes sir,” he replied. “9.25 cents per dollar.”

It was a first for me, and, I suspect, yet another example of rampant consumer price gouging by those who (think they) can get away with it.

Ack!

In a story about her appearance at Kansas State University Friday, the Topeka Capital-Journal looks at what former New York Times investigative reporter Judith Miller (who spent 85 days in jail for refusing to reveal a source in the Valerie Plame case) thinks of the blogosphere.

The blurring of entertainment and news and the relaxing of journalistic standards can be seen in online bloggers who are critical of people without giving them an opportunity to respond or who don’t post corrections when they learn that what they have posted is wrong, she said.

“I’m worried about bloggers,” she said. “(A post) starts as a rumor and within 24 hours it’s repeated as fact.”

While she advocates a federal shield law to protect mainstream journalists from divulging their sources, she doesn’t favor extending that to bloggers who don’t follow the standards and ethnics of the journalism industry.

Still, she wouldn’t restrict a blogger’s right to publish online. She said some bloggers have been invaluable in uncovering government flaws.

“I’m glad to welcome them as long as they agree to the standards,” she said.

This is the kind of contempt prior to investigation that makes it impossible to have a fair discussion with mainstreamers about the value of the blogosphere. Rather than throwing flame bomb generalizations such as the “rumor” quote above, why doesn’t she give us chapter and verse? And who has the right to determine the standards upon which journalists must abide?

This is so old, but just when I think the argument is over, stuff like this appears again. Feh.

When we talk about advertisers “shifting” ad dollars from one venue to another, we often talk about where the money is going, when we ought to be looking at where it’s coming from. In so doing, we discover the truth of Bob Papper’s statement that television didn’t hurt magazines by taking away readers; it hurt magazines by taking away its advertising.

So it is with online. One of my favorite studies is the annual survey (.ppt) of ad execs by the American Advertising Federation on advertising trends, and this year’s — released yesterday and reported this morning in Media Daily News — reveals online video to be the big winner.

More than half (53%) of the 168 respondents said they expect 20% or more of their TV advertising budgets to shift into online video by 2010 (see table below). “The determining factor will be the sheer volume of online opportunities,” said one agency executive participating in the survey. “Will there be a handful of sites that rise above the fray or will there be so sites to choose from that the media dollars can’t possibly cover enough bases to be effective?”

Notice that word “shift” and that it’s coming from broadcast and cable TV.

The question for local stations is pretty simple. Do you have the technology in place to receive these shifting ad dollars? If not — and even though the survey said advertisers think broadcasters are best equipped to handle these online dollars — you won’t be seeing any of this money.

Peter Scheer’s “idea” to embargo free newspaper content on the web for 24 hours is being universally rejected by observers today. Scheer is a San Francisco lawyer and journalist and executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition. That’s THE First Amendment all right. In a nutshell, Scheer suggests that all newspapers get together (outside anti-trust laws, of course) and agree not to run any free content online until 24 hours have passed.

Imagine the major Web portals — Yahoo, Google, AOL and MSN — with nothing to offer in the category of news except out of date articles from “mainstream” media and blogosphere musings on yesterday’s news. Digital fish wrap. And the portals know from unhappy experience (most recently in the case of Yahoo) just how difficult it is to create original and timely news content themselves.

He is attempting to create an artificial scarcity for content and thereby establish its real value. It doesn’t sit well with media observers.

Jeff Jarvis:

Uh, counselor, you assume that you can still control the news. You can’t. That’s the whole point of the internet. Others can easily step into whatever void there is and report what you don’t report; you’re only opening the door for them. Oh, but they don’t have what the papers have? Look again: It’s worth cataloguing just how much in a paper is commodity news that is known elsewhere. So you would make papers staler in a world that demands freshness. You would tell you customers — your former readers — to continue living by your schedule instead of theirs. You would drive the last nail into papers’ coffins.

Cory Bergman:

Interesting idea, but it will never work, of course. How about this instead: stop trying to copy newspapers to the web and start developing new information-related, niche businesses online.

Steve Fox:

Every now and then, you read a piece where you have to stop, take a breath and then go back and make sure you actually just read that…

The assumption that embargoing information (good luck doing that, by the way) will somehow inflate the value of newspapers is achingly flawed but no doubt is a concept supported in many corporate board rooms.

An editor at The Washington Post once asked me how the Web site could drive readers to pick up and read the Sunday newspaper. I politely responded that that’s the wrong direction.

Scheer’s 1996-like proposal is just that, headed in the wrong direction. And, the idea that a First Amendment attorney would propose restrictions on the release of information? Wow.

I don’t have much good to say about this “idea” either, because it completely misses what’s really taking place online. I agree that newspapers (and other local media) will NEVER replace the money they’re losing in the Media 1.0 space with web revenues, because every strategy they’re employing is an act of defending turf from an enormous business disruption.

Salvation for local media, as I will preach ’til my dying day, lies WITHIN the disruption, and that takes an entirely different set of eyes to see.

In Texas, we’d call Scheer’s idea “dumber than a bucket of hair.”

High School journalism students and their advisors are caught in a real conundrum over changes in the media landscape and what the future might hold. My heart goes out to instructors these days, because it ain’t a-goin’ where they’re a-pointin’.

I got an earful of this Saturday at the JEA’s “National High School Journalism Conference” in Nashville, where I led a session on the personal media revolution. I went through all the basics and was delighted to find that the audience was pretty up-to-speed on new media. Many had blogged or published something online, and a majority had uploaded a video to YouTube. A dozen or so of them knew what RSS was. They liked the videos I played and were fascinated by my charts and graphs.

At one point, I mentioned Kodak, and a gentleman who appeared to be an instructor pointed out that most of the kids in the room had never had a film camera. I felt so old. We had a nice time until the bogeymen of objectivity and tradition reared their ugly heads.

Near the end of the Q&A session, a young man advised the audience to continue to press forward with careers in “real” journalism with its ideals of ethics, fairness and objectivity. I got a little upset with this, because here I was telling them what’s taking place in the real world, and he was negating everything I’d just said. His argument was simple but very wrong, and it’s one I run into everywhere I go. Blogs, the blogosphere and citizen journalism, the thinking goes, are fine, but it’s mostly just opinion, and people need the facts. That, he believes, is the job of the trained expert reporter.

We got off on a tangent about Bill O’Reilly being an “opinion journalist,” whatever that is. I wouldn’t defend Bill O’Reilly, but I won’t play the game either. I argued that people need argument, not opinion, and that this was lacking in traditional, allegedly “just the facts” journalism. You should have seen the looks on faces as I challenged what was being said. You’d think I’d just landed from Mars.

The young man continued by saying he was a web developer and “knew all this stuff,” but that if we’d all just look at the links from blogs, we’d find that they all point to mainstream media outlets. This, in his mind (and in the minds of many), proves that there will always be a need for what he and others believe is “real” journalism.

And that is what these young people are hoping to be.

One young man asked how a citizen journalist (I hate the term, because it attempts to differentiate pros from “those awful amateurs.”) could go to Iraq to do the job of fact-gathering. Too expensive. Access is only granted to credentialed journalists. By this, he was validating his illusion that only big media can do “real” journalism. I argued that, in fact, some of the best reporting about Iraq had come from the fringes and that Iraqi bloggers had done an outstanding job of reporting what others wouldn’t.

We got off on the always-fruitfulless issues of accuracy and credibility and how that’s what people wanted and needed. “What credibility?” I asked, pointing out that all of the measurements available put public trust of the media at an all-time low. “What accuracy?” I argued, noting that bloggers are continually fact-checking and outing examples of inaccurate reporting in the mainstream.

What amazed me in all of this was that these young people actually believe there will be jobs for them in the promised land of mainstream media when they get out of college five years downstream. I’m sure that at least a few of these people felt I was a complete jerk for arguing against their dream, and perhaps I got a little testy. I feel very passionate about young people and even moreso about the business of news, and I’m tired of fighting the same battles over and over and over again.

I don’t have all the answers to questions about where journalism is headed, but I do know that so-called professional journalism is being turned on its ear now, and I view this as a good thing. I think there’ll probably always be top-down news outlets who continue what they view as the gate-keeper function, but as long as the bottom line dictates the dos and don’ts, they won’t be serving the public interest that’s assigned to the fourth estate. Who and what will have that authority is being written even today, and nobody knows what it’ll be.

“Go forth and make media,” I told the group. “You want to ‘be’ a journalist, be one! There’s no badge that makes you one, no degree, no license (thank God and the founding fathers), no credentials and no special anointing from the New York Times. So just do it.” This again drew a few moans and rolled eyes.

Sorry, but journalists are not a special class of citizen.

I got a lot of good feedback when the session was over. One young fellow asked for my e-mail address, and a young lady told me it was the most beneficial session she’d attended, but I came away just shaking my head. Clearly, our education system has its collective head up its butt moreso than even the most obstinate of traditional media moguls. And this is profoundly sad, because the primrose path of a one-potato, two-potato, three-potato, four formula to get into “the biz” isn’t as flower-lined as it once was. You can’t buy your way into the club anymore, because the club isn’t taking new members, regardless of your pedigree.

Meanwhile, circulation falls, news viewing falls, and people are turning to each other for knowledge and information. New citizens media efforts, like NewAssignment.net, are being launched, as smart people try to find ways to blend the old with the new.

And these young people think there will be traditional jobs out here for them when they leave the cocoon of academia.

I was at lunch today with friends from WKRN-TV, and the conversation ultimately turned to the death of Ed Bradley. People were complaining about the over-the-top, lead story coverage, and how certain anchors and friends were all weepy on-the-air. While grieving is understandable, there was consensus that this was a bit much. I mean, the guy was an anchor, not the Pope.

Perhaps we’re weeping for more than just the loss of a person. Maybe that with the passing of each of these anchors, we’re reminded of our own mortality and, more significantly, of the period in history that’s closing. Sensing the approach of your own death is one thing, but the loss of a whole way of life?

Television news of the sort that produced the big name anchors and the local celebrities of today is slowly headed into the sunset. Like the photograph in Back To The Future, the image of an era that dominated my own life is fading, but unlike the movie, there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

While I’m certainly optimistic and upbeat about the opportunities that lie before us, Bradley’s death does give me pause. The tears for Ed Bradley are, in part, tears for all of us.

Here is the latest in the ongoing series of essays, TV News in a Postmodern World. This essay examines what I believe is a right brain renaissance in our culture — a shift away from counting numbers and making rules to creative thinking and creative expression. When people speak of culture wars, this conflict is very much at the center.

This is an important understanding as we move into the Media 2.0 space, for much of what “works” here doesn’t make a lot of sense. Or perhaps it’s better to say that it makes sense only after it has been up and running for awhile, when we can see what it’s all about. But by then, it’s often too late for us. Google is the classic example. Their purchase of YouTube doesn’t compute with those who think in a purely left brain fashion, but to those who see beyond the numbers, it’s a perfect marriage. Google itself didn’t make a lot of sense as a media company just a few years ago. This is what I mean when I say that looking for left brain understanding in a right brain renaissance will bring us to the table too late.

And there has never been a time when we need creative thinking in local television, yet most creative concepts are shot down, because they can’t stand the test of left brain goal-setting and planning. This is a serious challenge for all management levels in broadcasting.

Right Brain Renaissance

After many years of blogging, my technology has finally caught up with the subject I write about. I’m using Wordpress and happy to be doing so.

There’ll be some kinks, but I think you’ll like the RSS2.0 feed. I know that I’m going to like all of the other features.

My little Greymatter site accomplished a lot during the years I used it. Traffic has been steadily growing and the trendline shows no sign of flattening. Words cannot express how much I’ve appreciated getting to know people through this site.

Doc Searls is the leader in trying to get us to see that the web cannot and should not be viewed only as a series of pipes through which pass content.

I’m tired of hearing the Net referred to as a “medium”. Same goes for “social media” such as blogs, wikis and IM. Yes, packets go through the Net. In an almost-literal sense, Senator Stevens is right that it’s a system of “pipes”.

But the Net is pure infrastructure. We work on it, just as we work on the electric power grid, the road system and our water and waste treatment systems, all of which also support the transport of stuff (electrons, cars, water, waste).

The status quo wishes us to see it entirely as a transportation system, because there’s money in offering services in tiers, and you need everybody to accept their understanding in order to pull it off. This is at the heart of the net neutrality debate.

Well, I just got back from a series of meetings in a conference room at a Hilton hotel here in Dallas, during which the hotel wanted us to pay for wireless internet access on a per-user basis. Here’s the scenario:

There were 11 of us in a small conference room with a table that seated 12. Naturally, we all wanted access to the net, but the charge for that was $175 per person! That’s $1,925 for internet access for the group. We (I) pitched a fit, and they agreed to cut it significantly, but it was still far more than what we were willing to pay.

Access in a room at the hotel is $12, but $175 for the same access in one of the conference rooms. “It’s standard in the industry,” I was told by the frightened girl I confronted in Conference Services (this challenges the meaning of that word). Can anybody say rip-off?

In order to get away with this kind of “service,” the hotel needs to convince everybody that internet access must be charged on a user basis, because each user requires a separate pipe. This is nuts, and it’s why Doc and many others are fighting for control of the lexicon that is being written rewritten daily.

So I’m doing a little research this morning for a new essay on postmodernism and the right brain, and I discover something while googling “Age of Enlightenment.” These four links contain exactly the same Wikipedia content.

Wikipedia
Answers.com
Quickseek.com
Arikah.com

So either Wikipedia is selling its content to others who are monetizing it, or others are just stealing it. The point is that Wikipedia’s reach is beyond its own website, and I didn’t know that before.

(A chill just went down the backs of the “but you can’t trust it” crowd.)