As if it really needed defining, right?

In an ongoing case that continues to baffle common sense, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has refiled its suit against Universal Music Group for bullying YouTube into pulling a 29-second clip of little Holden Lenz “dancing” to background music of the Prince tune “Let’s Go Crazy.” The original suit was tossed out by Federal district court judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose, who said the EFF hadn’t proven their claim that the clip’s fair use of the song was “self-evident.” Any sane human being could recognize that it was, so the EFF’s new case spells it out, and it’s precious:

“The video bears all the hallmarks of a family home movie–it is somewhat blurry, the sound quality is poor, it was filmed with an ordinary digital video camera, and it focuses on documenting Holden’s ‘dance moves’ against a background of normal household activity, commotion and laughter,” the new complaint charges. “The snippet of ‘Let’s Go Crazy’ that plays in the background (not dubbed as a soundtrack) of the Holden Video could not substitute for the original Prince song in any conceivable market.”

Kudos to the EFF! There’s no reply from Universal yet, and they’d be well-advised to just settle the thing, because if this makes it through the courts, it’ll become a fatal setback in their efforts to win the personal media battle through the legal system.

It was, as we say here in Texas, dumber than a bucket of hair to push this case in the first place (the video had only 29 views when Universal lawyers found it - now over 463,000), and anything from here on out just adds to the foolishness of Universal’s actions.

Doc Searls has been justifiably irked about certain aspects of Facebook (namely those relentless friend requests), but I apparently don’t know enough people for that to be a problem. I do, however, have a serious bone to pick with Linked-In and their endorsements and recommendations application. “Endorse so-and-so. It only takes a minute.” Well, what if I don’t want to?

It seems innocent enough, but here’s my quandary: how do I endorse some and not others in such a public place? If I endorse Joe but not Bill, how’s Bill going to feel if he finds out I’ve endorsed Joe? I also just don’t like the feel of a “request for endorsement.” It seems so, presumptuous, doesn’t it?

I think I object mostly to the expectation of acceptance that’s implied, so rather than use the thing as I suspect it was envisioned, I just refuse to endorse or recommend anybody. It’s not personal, folks.

I’ve been seeing this picture all over the Web today, and if you haven’t, you probably need to have somebody call an ambulance, because you’re likely not breathing. The picture is the hook for hundreds of scandalous stories of Miley posing topless, apologies (another), accusations, blame and the like. Miley is, of course, only 15-years old and a rising (hell, she’s already “risen”) star of the family-friendly Disney company. The photo comes from the latest issue of Vanity Fair, and I’ll spare you the other details.

I just have one question. How is this picture - in any way - considered “topless?”

Huh?

There is just no way you can stretch the language enough for this to be topless, for the word MEANS to expose one’s breasts. No breasts that I can see here. Move along.

This manufacturing of conflict is the American way of life for celebrities, and it’s a sad commentary on all of us. We’ve all seen as much from a 15-year old heading to the prom, so please, people, get over it.

The Senate, with the full blessing of our two Democratic candidates, is about to put the skids on the FCC’s decision to loosen cross-ownership rules, whereby media companies can own both a television station and a newspaper in the same market. Damn those big media people, huh? They want to control the voices in our communities, so we can’t let them narrow choices “for the American people.” Word.

Given the realities of the current media conundrum, however, this strikes me as a bit like waving off the RMS Carpathia on its journey to rescue the survivors of the Titanic. I mean, really, folks; who cares if big media is owned by one person? It’s all drifting slowly into the sands of yesterday anyway.

The issue is over independent and varied voices, which is a BIG part of the disruption in the first place.

Odd that I find myself actually siding with Kevin Martin.

It was two years ago this morning.

She will always be my inspiration. Today, I published another essay. She would be proud.

Here is the next in the ongoing series of essays “Local Media in a Postmodern World,” A Reasonable View of Tomorrow.

Media companies continue to reduce expenses in the wake of falling revenues, forcing newsroom restructuring on a fairly regular basis. Where this will end is anybody’s guess, and while some of it must be blamed on the economy, we all know that disruptive technologies and changing consumer behaviors are the biggest factors. I’ve felt for years that a likely future scenario is the rise of independent journalists who sell their output to local and other media outlets, and this essay expands that thinking. It features an interview with Gabe Rivera, creator of Techmeme, a remarkable aggregator of the tech media space. Techmeme is a perfect example of how the niche content of independent journalists could be brought together in one place to form an immediate understanding of what’s important, although the scale isn’t there yet to accomplish it at the local level.

There also doesn’t exist a definitive revenue model for such a scenario. Money. however, doesn’t always flow where we want it to flow, and its flow isn’t very predictable in a time of change. Of more importance, to me, is where is journalism headed, because money has a way of following eyeballs. The tools exist for anybody to be a publisher today, and this is the underlying reality that we cannot escape.

The first volume of this essay series is now available in book form (Reinventing Local Media), and you can find it at Amazon.com.

I had the great fortune to meet civil rights pioneer Dr. Benjamin Mays about a year before he passed away. At age 94, he was a guest on The 700 Club in the mid 80s (I was the show’s producer), and I’ve never forgotten a part of that interview. Pat asked him what was wrong “with today’s youth,” and his answer surprised everybody. “Parents,” Dr. Mays said, “are afraid to let their children experience the things that helped shape their own character.” Here was a man who had been through hell talking about shielding children from pain. Character. What an interesting word.

I thought of this today, because Chez Pazienza has posted an insightful journey into essentially the same question. Chez feels that the baby-faced David Archuleta is going to win American Idol this year, because he’s a textbook heartthrob for young teenage girls, a group that represents who’s really “in charge” in the marketing world of the west.

All adults have to do, is take back the world from their kids.

Don’t pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about, because it’s become impossible to ignore: A generation of parents who spoil their children rotten — hubristically buying into the notion that their specific spawn is somehow special and deserving of society’s deference — combined with the technology that gives every computer or text savvy kid a voice, whether he or she deserves one or not, has conspired to hijack a good portion of what we see and hear. It’s a Wiki world, one in which a vocal majority can literally rewrite the rules and twist reality to suit its needs, and right now, the ‘tweens are the most vocal — and what they need, apparently, are crappy, overproduced, Disneyfied Stepford Teens to scream for and sing along to.

This is why Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers are all but inescapable right now — and why David Archuleta is next.

I don’t know about American Idol. I, gasp, don’t watch it, but I do relate to what Chez is saying, and it takes me back to the studio at CBN that day in 1983.

And I wonder what will happen when a generation awakens to the reality that they aren’t so bloody special after all. Character is refined in the fire of pain, even that which is felt at the receiving end of the word “no.” I agree with Dr. Mays that we do our children a disservice when we protect them from every form of pain that helped shape our own character. In so doing, we leave them weak and defenseless, and a shame to us and them.

Lately, as I’ve cruised cable before bedtime, I’ve come across a reality show where parents choose who will take their son or daughter on an exotic vacation. The other night, two of the guys vying to date this beautiful young woman actually waxed their eyebrows (ack!). It’s probably just a generational thing, but it was curious that neither could “keep it in their pants” in previous relationships. Eyebrows, yes. Faithfulness, no.

A couple of really special guys.

BTW, Chez has now “published” his journey out of a heroin nightmare, and it’s fascinating reading. You can buy a download at his website, Deus Exmalcontent.

In a piece called “WebMD Dampens Financial Prognosis On Ad Slowdown,” Online Media Daily reports that WebMD has lowered its financial guidance for 2008, citing a softening ad marketplace. I don’t have much to say about that, but it does give me the opportunity to display my favorite paragraph from the entire website (from the “About” page).

Note that I’m not linking to them.

A web application for realtors that’s been around awhile challenges the traditional media company role (and anybody else’s, for that matter) in the creation of hyperlocal information sites. Those media companies trying to execute a hyperlocal strategy will likely find Connecting Neighbors websites already in place in at least some of the communities they’re trying to reach. Connecting Neighbors targets neighborhoods and operates 14,000 websites across the country.

In a remarkable example of how anybody can be a media company today, the sites are managed and sponsored by realtors, who use them to mine for potential clients. While declining to provide site statistics, Connecting Neighbors Marketing Manager Lisa Knight told me that the sites do very well, especially with a sponsor who dedicates time and resources to marketing it within the neighborhood. Simple yard signs (like the one pictured on the right in Huntsville, Alabama), postcards and word-of-mouth are all it takes.

Connecting Neighbors offers you the opportunity to become the exclusive Neighborhood Expert in your targeted market, while locking out your competitors. Begin building relationships in your market today!

The sites are simple and spartan, but packed with useful information and opportunities for user-generated content. There are publisher disclaimers throughout the site where users interact, just like you’d find with any other media company. Classifieds are free, local news comes via Topix.net (note: your local news is likely being presented on these sites via Topix), a directory, recipes, lots of referrals and links, and the general “feel” of a community site. The difference is that it’s run by a realtor who’s using it to mine for clients. How terribly smart!

A few sites serve communities beyond just a neighborhood, and the company has experimented with aggregating neighborhoods. Some of the content is provided by feeds, but the quality of the sponsor’s marketing is what makes the difference in generating content from residents of the neighborhood.

The price to the sponsor varies and is based on the number (and in some cases, the prices) of homes in the neighborhood being served and the services the sponsor chooses to offer. “On average, our one time setup fee is $1.65 per home,” added Ms. Knight, “and on average our monthly hosting fee is $0.09 per home.” The Connecting Neighbors website lists the following options:

• A Neighborhood Website that allows residents to connect with one another, read community news, post free classified ads, share pictures, and more.
• A Neighborhood Newsletter that features information specific to the neighborhood and is emailed to residents each month.
• A personal Neighborhood Marketing Coach assigned to help announce and promote the program to neighborhood residents.
• Quickshow multimedia presentations to engage and welcome residents to their Neighborhood Website.
• MLS data integration (where available) to constantly provide up-to-date real estate information.
• Relationship Manager feature (where available) for Members to manage all of their communications with their new prospects!

This provides two important lessons for media companies. One, anybody can be a media company today. Any. Body. I have been harping on this for years, but those of us in “professional” media feel we can take our time in exploring niches, when we really can’t. The discovery of a company such as Connecting Neighbors, to me, is like getting to the end of a voyage to plant a flag on some distant land only to discover there’s at least one other flag already there. Two, the people formerly known as the advertisers are spending money that used to go to us in order to bypass (expensive) filters and speak directly to potential customers, something about which I have also written in the past.

We may look at these sites and feel a sense of well being, because they’re not “up to our standards” or they don’t carry “a trusted brand,” but in the end it’s all about meeting information needs. Connecting Neighbors does that well, and the users (a.k.a. the people formerly known as the audience) could give a hoot if it’s sponsored by a realtor or not. Moreover, if a media company did this, they’d likely look to realtors, among others, to sponsor them the moment they were launched.

The message here is loud and clear: certain well-funded advertisers don’t need us anymore.

(NOTE: Originally published in AR&D’s Media 2.0 Intel client newsletter)

Steve Boriss offers insight into the roots of “professional journalism” in a Pajamas Media piece called “News Should Be Neither Fair Nor Balanced.”

Thomas Jefferson sought to establish a nation that featured maximum free expression, with a public allowed to think for themselves and their collective wisdom valued as “the consent of the governed.” He wanted newspapers to support this system by dispersing information and engaging in a process of opinion-driven “attack and defense” — in his view, this was the best and only way to get to the truth, deal with unknowns and unknowables, and absorb the personal preferences of a free people. Jefferson put his money where his mouth was. When his rival, Alexander Hamilton, helped found a newspaper to promote federalist ideas, Jefferson co-founded with James Madison a tremendously unfair and imbalanced newspaper to attack it. In case you missed it, this means that Thomas Jefferson did not believe in fair and balanced news either.

Boriss also looks at one of my favorite topics, the Creel Committee and provides an outstanding comment about the fruit of committee member Walter Lippmann, the father of professional journalism.

His proposed remedy has become our journalism of today — a rough-and-tumble craft that now falsely presents itself as a scientific profession, claiming to deliver singular truths using objective methods backed by a process of verification. Fairness? Balance? What do they have to do with it? Why settle for that when journalism elites can deliver something even better — true, correct answers in all matters of public policy?

It’s great to see other observers writing about these things, because they’re important at a time when we’re all trying to figure out what to do and where to go next. Journalism is a trade best practiced by passionate writers who wish to use their gifts to make a difference and advance the culture on behalf of everybody. Facts need no protecting, so argument should be one of its roots, for what good is knowledge based on experience, education or, yes, opinion, if one is unable to express it? As Jeff Jarvis has been writing lately, the contemporary press functions largely as a single entity — what he’s calling the “press-sphere” — and I certainly don’t believe that was ever the intention or view of the people who wrote the First Amendment.

As I read Steve’s essay, I couldn’t help but think that we wouldn’t be having this conversation, if the financial stress on mainstream media wasn’t as acute as it is today. And since I honestly believe the discussion is overdue, I have to view what’s taking place as a “correction” of some sort. Life is like that. It has a way of bringing things back to the source, when excess moves them away.

Walter Lippmann genuinely felt that the “mass” of people in our culture was prone to myth and superstition, and he wanted to do something about it. An educated elite who would lead, he believed, was the way to go. Perhaps he was right, but his solution has proven to a disaster, because it turns out that even educated elites are in it for themselves.

From John Battelle via Denise Caruso comes this wonderful video of Charlie Rose interviewing Charlie Rose about the Web. Even if you don’t like Rose, this is funny.

God love the genius of the people formerly known as the audience.

“‘Charlie Rose’ by Samuel Beckett”

Read my latest essay.

Then read Scrolling: No Longer a No-No by Poynter’s Fons Tuinstra, where he writes that scrolling is actually the tool of choice for younger users.

Told you so.

Here is the latest in my ongoing series of essays, Local Media in a Postmodern World.

The price at the pump is bumping up to the four dollar range, something I’ve not seen in my lifetime. While paying $50 the other day to fill my little car, it occurred to me that we’d best be prepared to pay these prices through the summer, because regardless of what’s causing the pricing, the law of supply and demand is at work. People drive more come Memorial Day, so the demand drives the price.

In this often frustrating world of supply and demand, the pendulum swings one way or the other as the factors influencing price begin to change. These factors can be seasonal, like the price of gas, or they can be determined by other forms of behavior. In the world of online advertising, it has clearly been a buyer’s market, with advertisers determining rates for revenue-hungry media companies.

All of that is about to change.

The Problem With Web Advertising

The views and suggestions expressed in this essay may seem radical, but like other things I’ve written, they’re designed to make you think. Publishers need to take control of the pricing of their web properties, and I believe it will happen sooner than later.

The first volume of this essay series (Reinventing Local Media) is now available in book form and “in stock” at Amazon.com. Get yours today!

The New York Times sued the government to get 8,000 pages of documents that prove those retired generals who function as expert analysts for network news programs and beyond are, in fact, pawns of the government! Oh no! The “hidden hand of the Pentagon,” they’re called. While most news organizations are falling all over themselves with this juicy piece of news manipulation, my initial reaction is, “Move along. There’s nothing to see here.”

Having just finished George Creel’s 1920 book, How We Advertised America: The First Telling Of The Amazing Story Of The Committee On Public Information That Carried The Gospel Of Americanism To Every Corner Of The Globe, the idea that the Pentagon would brief retired generals on what to say is hardly a bulletin. It’s been taking place for 100 years (and probably longer). And, of course, the press has no right to object, because it has been a willing participant for decades. As I have tried to communicate on many occasions, the father of professional journalism, Walter Lippmann, and the father of professional public relations, Edward Bernays, were both members of the Creel Committee.

Perhaps this “revelation” by The Times will be a good thing, but until the press accepts its duplicitous role beyond such currently unpopular themes as the Iraq war, it’s not going to mean much, for the “hidden hand” of the cultural elite includes the press.

Michael Arrington offers an insightful look at what’s happening to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Wikipedia is, of course, the Britannica’s summer heat, so the company has chosen to make its content available for free to what it defines as web publishers. Interesting move, but it won’t stop the company’s business model from melting under the blazing sun.

According to Comscore, for every page viewed on Brittanica.com, 184 pages are viewed on Wikipedia (3.8 billion v. 21 million pave views per month). In short, they are a classic example of the Innovator’s Dilemma (see also the Music Industry).

…Instead of going free and opening up to all, they’re using the new program to simply price discriminate. Give people who may link to the site free access. Everyone else has to pay. So in effect they’re aiming to be half pregnant - they want the benefits of web linking but don’t want to give up the subscription fees from the fools who continue to pay them.

What Michael doesn’t mention is that the Britannica was advertiser-supported and free before the internet bubble burst, which I wrote about extensively in the Feburary 2005 essay, The Devaluation of Information:

One of the most visible warriors in this free/paid debate has been the Encyclopaedia Britannica. During the Internet bubble days of 1999, the Britannica got a ton of recognition for the bold move of making its pages free to consumers online and adopting an advertising model. Tom Panelas, Director of Corporate Communications for Britannica, says they bought into the free information argument.

“The theory behind the model was traffic,” he remembers. “If you could get enough traffic, you could make it work. We did that. We had 8-10 million unique visitors a month. We were doing all the things right, and it seemed to be working.”

Then in 2000, the bottom dropped out of the market. Ad rates plummeted, and the Britannica’s experiment stopped working. “Of the different aspects of our revenue model,” Panelas says, “advertising was the most important ingredient, so when rates fell, it broke the model.”

The company did extensive research and concluded that the advertising model wasn’t sustainable, and that belief remains today. Panelas adds, “We believe that good quality, reliable information that is well-edited is somewhat rare and therefore valuable. People should be willing to pay for that.”

The Britannica online boasts a couple of hundred thousand subscribers, according to Panelas, many of them coming through third-party bundling of products and services, something he believes we’ll see a lot more of in the future.

The Britannica has weathered many storms in the last 15 years, as technology has rewritten their business. Even now, the online “Wikipedia” — which is written and edited by the public — poses a new threat, but the company has faith in its model. “This stuff is constantly changing,” Panelas admits, “and the way customers understand this is changing all the time.”

He’s quick to add, however, that “we live in a society that’s too sophisticated to completely abandon empirical and rational thinking.”

In a Postmodern world, such assumptions can be dangerous, and this is what’s at the heart of the free-versus-paid argument. The rational Modernist world is the one with the institutional doorways and permission gates, but that world is fading, and our culture is rapidly moving in a different direction. It’s a “new wine” thing, and it requires new wineskins.

In the three plus years since I wrote that, we’ve moved down the postmodern stream quite a distance, and the Britannica now finds itself in need of a different business model. Why they don’t just go back to the innovative status they enjoyed in 1999 is beyond me.

I think this week has been the longest I’ve ever gone without a blog entry. For those who follow what I write, I apologize, but the press of the paying job has made it difficult. First there was the NAB/RTNDA convention in Las Vegas. We had a suite at the Bellagio (the happening hotel) and made presentations to many media companies, introducing them to the web platform software (a.k.a. Content Management System) we’ve created in conjunction with our technology partner, Synapse Multimedia of Shreveport, LA.

Since I played a role in developing the software, it was quite a sense of accomplishment watching as various media company people gave praise. We’ll have a press release coming out on it next week, because it’s a pretty big deal when a major consulting company gets into the product business. We did it, frankly, because it was easier than trying to convince others of the power of our ideas, especially when they had their own software to protect. Cory Bergman of Lost Remote sat in on a presentation and was duly impressed, and when you impress Cory, well that’s really saying something.

The web-based CMS allows just about anyone to drag-and-drop widgets to create their own web pages. It includes ad serving with behavioral targeting, a video player (live and on demand), basic video editing, image editing and user-generated content. One of the big sells of the CMS is its ability to publish content seamlessly across multiple sites — and import RSS feeds from any other site. It also has the ability for a local TV station to run a local ad network of unaffiliated sites.

As a company, we feel strongly that local media companies need control of their own web platform, if they are to reach their full online potential. The era of third-party sites is evolving into one where much more control is at the local level, regardless of who serves up the software.

So three days in Vegas flat wore me out, followed by writing a new essay, which will be published next week. The result has been neglecting my blog, which I promise won’t be the norm.

Speaking of blogs, veteran television newsman and consultant Jim Willi of AR&D has launched a blog, and if the first two entries are any indication, it’s going to be a good one. Jim tells it like it is and will be writing mostly about newsroom strategies and tactics. Mosey on over and have yourself a lookie-loo.

The AR&D gang is westbound on a heading to Las Vegas for the annual conference of the National Association of Broadcasters and the Radio Television News Directors Association. It’s a good thing American Airlines is back on schedule, or we would have a pretty big problem on our hands.

I’m not on any panels this year (*sob*), but I’ll be around. We have many appointments scheduled for our suite and the Bellagio, so I’m not sure how much time I’ll be able to spend at the actual conference. If you want to hook up, just drop me a note.

My book will be on sale at the bookstore in Pavilion 11 at the Hilton. All copies will be autographed, so if you don’t have yours, that’ll be a good place to get one.

I’m spending Master’s Saturday tweaking the html of my blog, so that it’ll fit the style of the new AR&D site.

UPDATE: Been working on it, and it’s just about where I want it. What do you think?

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks for CBS. First, its local station group reduced expenses by cutting 150+ people, including some very well-paid anchors. Observers expressed astonishment, and overnight, every local news anchor began to squirm just a little bit and discover that those expensive office chairs at the anchor desk aren’t quite as comfy as they used to be.

Then this week came word that the network is continuing talks with CNN to take over some of its newsgathering. Observers gasped again. “What’s the world coming to?” they may have asked. Jeff Jarvis, on the other hand, cut to the chase with the provocative headline, “CBS is leaving the news business.”

We don’t need three evening newscasts exactly alike except as a repository for erectile dysfunction commercials. So let one or two networks win the ratings. Let CBS put more resources into investigations on 60 Minutes. Let CNN cover breaking news — with more help from witnesses with cameras.

Ouch! And now comes word that CBS appears to be giving up on Katie Couric, something that 99% of Americans have seen coming since the day she was first brought into the fold. CBS is denying the CNN and Couric stories, but people view that with the same raised eyebrow that accompanied “I didn’t inhale.”

And so the entire tribe of media observers stands poised to pounce, because CBS seems to be blazing a trail that others will have to follow, and everybody’s got an opinion about that.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia TV columnist Laura Nachman writes of a panel discussion in Philly involving the state of local television news, quoting WCAU-TV news director Chris Blackman.

“In my 26 years in news, I’ve never seen things as dicey as they are now. With layoffs, shrinkage, and downsizing, we need to reinvent ourselves.”

“We are not relevant the way we used to be because viewers don’t need us anymore,” Blackman said referring to mobile devices and the internet.

Blackman proved his point when only a handful of people in the audience of around 150 television professionals raised their hands when he asked if anyone needed to watch local television stations to get their news.

What Mr. Blackman is feeling is the same thing that the CBS observers are feeling, and that is the enormity of the disruptive innovations brought about by technology and a shift away from the modernist, colonial culture that spawned traditional media in the first place. Put a fork in it; it’s done.

Oh, mass media will be with us for a long time yet, but it will never again enjoy the status it once held, and to think otherwise is just nostalgic denial. And I would add that the reinvention process is so pressing that we don’t have time for blame assessment, nor do we have time to do a lot of research. An industry run by bean counters has little chance when entrepreneurship is what’s required, so we need to take a few chances along-the-way.

I’m reminded of the wonderful lament by Henry Adams, “The law of nature is change (chaos), while the dream of man is order.”

Embrace the chaos of change; it’s our best hope for tomorrow.

Three years ago, I was a part of a research project in the Northwest that included discussions with young people who didn’t participate in the local news scene. Jay Rosen would call them “the people formerly known as the audience.” In one question, we asked people 18-49 to agree or disagree with this statement: “I don’t mind reporters with a bias, as long as they’re honest in telling me what it is.” Nearly six in ten agreed with the statement, and that seemed to surprise everybody.

The response isn’t surprising, however, from a postmodern worldview, because pomos tend to make decisions of trust based on their own experiences, so the concept of “objectivity” is seen as poppycock. There is no such thing as a lack of bias. From a larger perspective, the mistrust of institutional power is based in a fundamental belief that such institutions exist first to serve themselves, and claims that justify a special position within the culture are viewed as disingenuous, to be kind.

So it’s not surprising to find similar thoughts expressed in a new study by the Associated Press Managing Editors group and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. The Online Journalism Credibility Study found an unfamiliar disconnect between journalists and consumers.

Some 70 percent of editors surveyed said requiring commenters to disclose their identities would support good journalism, while only 45 percent of the public did. Similarly, 58 percent of editors said letting journalists join online conversations and give personal views would harm journalism, but only 36 percent of the public agreed.

Expressions of personal views seem to help boost readers’ interest and trust in Web sites, said John `Bart” Bartosek, editor of The Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, Fla., and chairman of the credibility committee for the AP managing editors group.

“That’s contrary to most of the traditions we’ve all grown up with, to keep our opinions, viewpoints and personal lives out of our story,” Bartosek said. “There’s some indication that readers are looking for something more online. Whether it’s information about our expertise, our knowledge, our background, I’m not really sure.”

People want to trust journalists, but it’s hard to trust somebody whose best argument is “just trust me.” The more we try to separate ourselves from the people formerly known as the audience, the harder it’s going to be to build credibility. Journalists are people, too, although many certainly don’t act like it.

The message from the people is pretty clear: just be real.