The video below is an “ad” currently making the rounds online. It’s Paris Hilton jumping at the opportunity to be herself in response to the dumb move by John McCain’s campaign to use an image of Miss Hilton in a campaign ad comparing Barack Obama to other celebrities. The observations so far have all been political or from the entertainment press, but I think there’s a huge comment to be made about media here.

But first, the video:

In today’s world, everybody is a media company. I’ve been preaching that lesson for almost 10 years now. It’s the essence of J.D. Lasica’s seminal book, Darknet: Hollywood’s War on the Digital Generation, in which he coined the phrase “personal media revolution.” This video by Miss Hilton is a stunning example of that, because she is, among other things, a media company, and, like everybody else, has the resources to put cute little videos out into cyberspace where they can be picked up by others and passed around. In so doing, Paris Hilton has injected herself into the race for President of the United States, or I suppose you could say that McCain did that for her. And here’s the thing: this video is actually more than just cute or funny.

Candidates have to buy time to get their messages out, while everyday people — using back channels — can do the same thing for nothing. I realize this is Paris Hilton and that she carries leverage that others don’t have, but you’d be missing the point to dismiss the bigger picture here. As Gordon Borrell so beautifully put it, “The deer now have guns,” and we need to pay attention to that.

From a postmodern perspective, this incident shows how people are able to participate in the political process in ways never before possible, and it is changing — and will change — things forever.

Mark Cuban is his usual out-of-focus self with a post (Hulu is kicking Youtube’s ass) declaring Hulu the winner over YouTube. The problem, of course, is that these two companies are not now and have never been in competition, although Cuban thinks otherwise. To Mark, YouTube has always been about the theft of copyrighted material, so he never really bothers to examine what makes it hum.

It’s all about the money to Mark. A media business can only exist if its revenue model is built around scarce content, so he proclaims Hulu king and makes a prediction:

…by next year, not only will Hulu have more monetizable traffic than Youtube, but it will have more total revenues than Youtube as well. It wouldn’t sup rise (sic) me if they are already at a higher annual run rate than Youtube.

Here’s the thing. Mark’s probably right, but in thinking of YouTube only in sustainable business model terms, he misses the larger picture and continues to prove himself ignorant about the Web. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons to do things contrary to the P&Ls of the past, if they work towards a longer term return (why doesn’t Google sell ads on its home page?). He has always viewed YouTube through biased eyes (those damned thieves), and for a smart guy, he sure comes up short here.

“Youtube hides behind the Digital Millennium Copyright Act,” he writes, as if its reason for being is to steal copyrighted material and profit from it. If it looks like a red herring and smells like a red herring, then it’s probably a red herring.

YouTube is about sharing, people sharing what they see and what they make, things we’ve been doing since before the term “media” referred only to the home of the Medes. In the 15th Century, the Roman Church didn’t want the Bible being shared with the laity, because they felt they “owned” it. I took my 45s with me to friends’ homes back in the 50s, so that they could hear the music too. Back then, the record industry knew that exposing people to the music was the best chance they had to sell another record.

YouTube’s tentacles within the personal media revolution go on for miles, because people don’t use it to view stolen goodies. Its business model hasn’t been written yet, and those who insist on looking for one just don’t have the patience to wait. I use YouTube to post videos that I’ve made on my MySpace page. There are lots of ways I could do that, but the Flip camera and YouTube make other options seem obsolete. How does YouTube gain from that? For one thing, they keep anybody else from charging fees or profiting from interruptive commercials, and in so doing, buy time for an acceptable business model to develop.

But that’s not the point. We’re in another Gutenberg moment here and the “church,” led by priests like Cuban, want absolute control over material the law tells them they own. I don’t think anybody objects to that concept, but the more people like Cuban press the matter, the more unseemly the whole thing seems.

I love Hulu and have expressed that love before. I watch “House” via Hulu, and while I wonder why there’s such an emphasis on clips from shows instead of the shows themselves, it’s a great experience. But I go to Hulu knowing what I’m getting, just as I go to YouTube knowing what I’m getting.

They’re two different things.

So YouTube has announced the hiring of a news manager and the launch of a citizen journalism channel. Don’t be fooled by the raw nature of this, folks, because you may be looking at not only future hires in your community but also future styles in presenting video news. This is an unorganized group with YouTube (Google) playing its typical support and distribution role in sidestepping traditional media companies to present a form of journalism that most professionals deem far beneath them.

The news manager is no novice when it comes to citizen journalism. Olivia Ma recently graduated from Harvard and was a regular contributor to Dan Gillmor’s Center for Citizen Media blog.

Gillmor, author of what is widely considered the original manifesto of the citizen journalism movement, We, the Media, told me via email this morning that the YouTube project is another worthwhile experiment, and “I’m looking forward to seeing how it works.”

“But as they monetize this,” he added, “I hope they’re going to find a way to reward the people who are doing the work. I’m not a fan of business models that say ‘You do all the work and we’ll take all the money, thank you very much.’ I also hope they’ll give people a way to post using Creative Commons licenses, which are all about sharing information, as opposed to the currently restrictive terms of service.”

I agree with Dan on the above, and his message is relevant for all media companies trying to “monetize” user-generated content.

But beyond that, this move by YouTube demands our attention for its assumption that anybody can “do news” and distribute their work for free. The pamphleteers of journalism’s past would’ve loved it.

(Originally posted in AR&D’s Media 2.0 Intel newsletter)

One of the great things about the Web is the immediate access to knowledge and information, something about which I’ve written here often. All of the institutions of colonial modernism are under attack, in part, because their place in the culture — their authority, if you will — is granted by access to protected knowledge. This culture clash is uncomfortable for those whose position is being picked apart, and so they’re fighting back with arguments that are often specious, at best.

One such argument has been thoroughly dissected here, that of terrified elitist Andrew Keen and his assertion that amateurs will surely destroy the world. This meme — this attack on everyday people with access to knowledge — has been picked up by others with something to lose in the culture clash and is now rather widespread among all elites.

And it’s absolutely wonderful to find the occasional person who kicks back against this crap, and I was introduced to a spectacular example today in the form of Mike Caulfield, his blog and an entry titled If a Columnist Calls a Tail a Leg…

In this outstanding piece of work, Caulfield elegantly deconstructs a Keenish form of argument by Monica Hesse in, of all places, The Washington Post. Her column is provocatively called “Truth: Can You Handle It?” She attacks what she pejoratively calls the “wiki-world” and uses what she feels is a false quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln to make her point.

Unfortunately for Ms. Hesse, HER Lincoln reference is the one that’s wrong (Oops!), and Caulfield’s legwork on the matter is worthy of any journalism award.

Go read the whole thing. You’ll thank me later on.

In a Vanity Fair article, Buzz Bissinger explains his tirade (tirade here) last week on HBO’s Costas Now against Deadspin blogger Will Leitch. Bissinger later apologized, not for his feelings but for the manner in which he expressed them. It was a classy move.

But the Costas segment was a stunning illustration of the real angst between mainstream sports writers and the sports blogosphere, which is increasingly setting the agenda for all sports reporting these days. As a guy who’s been following this for a long time, I found it painful to watch Bissinger make a fool of himself, and I felt equally uncomfortable watching Costas try and defend the status quo. Both are incredibly smart guys, but they’re blinded by their own perspective.

Costas referred to sports writers with “real credentials and real access.” The comment was obviously meant to separate “real” sports writers from (unreal) bloggers, and this doesn’t get anybody anywhere.

He also referred to the “legitimate complaint” about the sports blogosphere, namely the tone of gratuitous potshots and criticisms. Both Bissinger and Costas used quotes from commenters to make their case, which caused Leitch to note that, “surely we can differentiate between the blogger and the commenters.”

As I’ve written in the past, sports journalism has changed dramatically since Watergate brought to the surface the form of journalism known as “gotcha.” It has gone from entirely cheerleading to some excellent and insightful work by serious writers, be they mainstream or other. There’s still the sense, though, that access to athletes is a gift granted by their owners (yes, they are “owned”), and that this can be a significant conflict of interest, especially when such access crosses from professional to personal. Professional sports leagues are going out of their way to restrict access, because they want to control their message, and the extent to which the mainstream press is forced to go along with this is sad.

One of the very definitions of “news” goes like this: dog bites man, not news; man bites dog, news. So the norm is not news, and therefore when athletes perform according to their gifts and expectations, it doesn’t fit the definition of news. The exceptional athlete — Tiger Woods, for example — is certainly newsworthy, but the PGA’s slogan is “These Guys Are Good.” In that light, a “good” performance isn’t news, but a bad performance is. Yet we rarely see stories when “these guys are bad.”

Hell, show me, shot-by-shot, the 15 that John Daly scored on number 9, because that’s news.

So there is a symbiotic relationship between sports and sports writers, and that’s okay. But that isn’t the only form of sports journalism, for the output of this symbiotic relationship is fair game for observers (and fans), because both (the sport and the pro writer) are on the same pedestal. News about the news is one of the hallmarks of the blogosphere, and it may make the mainstream press uncomfortable, but it is every bit as much “journalism” as that which is published by the pros.

Moreover, I most disagree with the assertion by blogosphere critics (such as Bissinger and Costas) that bloggers are a part of any real or perceived “dumbing down” of the information stream. Any time I hear that, I’m immediately drawn to the Lippmannesque reasonings of colonial thinking, that culture must have an elite class to lead the ignorant and emotionally-driven masses. That is insulting and just plain wrong. The voices from the mass may seem crude to the pedestal dwellers of the culture, but those voices count as much as anyone’s.

Charlton Heston is gone and all of Life mourns his passing. But here’s an interesting tidbit from my friend Holly.

I was reading a discussion board at 11:10 (last night, central time) when someone posted that Charlton Heston had died. A few minutes later, I went to Wikipedia to look at his Wiki entry. Yep, already there. It beat the front pages of all the major news sites. It’s not on CNN’s front page as of my clicking Compose Mail to send you this.

Like it or not, mainstream media, this is the way it is.

A week ago, I wrote about the concept of “finding” news consumers based on a comment from a student during a focus group. “If the news is that important,” the young man said, “it will find me.” How does that happen? Word-of-mouth and examples like this.

The change to Heston’s Wikipedia page could have come from his own people, or it could have come from a fan. But the fact that it occurred ahead of major news outlets is a stunning example of how people are able to sidestep the gatekeepers in the quest to be informed.

Why wait for “the media” to help you with mischief makers when you have the ability to do it yourself? This is from Mac Resources, the Apple store in Huntsville, Alabama. Note the “Digg this” link.

Click to embiggen

Most observers miss that businesses are a central component of the personal media revolution.

The challenge to mainstream media is increasingly to aggregate this kind of stuff. The direction is clear.

I’ve just spent the past hour listening to a fascinating panel discussion involving Al Gore, John Seigenthaler and Jimmy Wales that I highly recommend. You’ll recall the “problem” that Seigenthaler encountered with Wales’ Wikipedia last year, and that is the basis for the entire discussion. It is an outstanding conversation between three intellectuals about free speech and the need for accuracy, and you won’t be disappointed.

In the conversation, Seigenthaler delivers a healthy rebuke to the broadcast news industry about what he views as its unwillingness to correct errors, even going so far as to suggest that broadcasters don’t deserve the large audiences they get, because they don’t care about accuracy on the same level as print journalists. Listen for yourself; it’s worth the time.

A big thanks to Tom Cheredar for uploading the file.

Jeff Jarvis has been doing a marvelous job of blogging the World Economic Forum in Davos for everybody, and I encourage you to head over to the Buzzmachine to get caught up. One entry in particular bears embedding here, because it’s a brief interview with Robert Scoble about his live “broadcasts” from the event via cellphone.

Scoble is at the cutting edge of the cutting edge, and those in the professional media world need to pay attention to him and especially the ease with which he makes things like this happen.

Imagine how the ability of “the audience” to interact with the interviewer could impact everything we do. Fascinating.

Long ago, a mentor of mine taught me about “the currency of ego,” and I want to share some of that with you to make a point about a Nieman Reports essay by Will Bunch — Forgetting Why Reporters Choose the Work They Do. The subtitle summarizes the article: “Will journalists ‘cover local news for life, with no chance of parole?’”

This is an outstanding essay and one that really strikes at the key local media matter of our time — coverage of “local” is really all that local media companies have left. Bunch writes that this is problematic with journalists who see local as a means to an end. He speaks of print journalists, but this also speaks dramatically to local television.

On an emotional level, I’m going on 49 years old, and I have a lot of friends around my age who have survived the surge in newsroom layoffs and are still working in an ink-stained newsroom somewhere. Not one of us wanted to be covering local news at our age (or, for that matter, at any age.) But we’ve been there, done that. To be brutally honest: For an ambitious journalist, the only way to get through a four-hour suburban school board meeting—even at age 22—is to keep repeating the mantra “this, too, shall pass.” In other words, treat this day’s assignment as just a boring but necessary pit stop on the road to Moscow or Beirut…

…I’d say that for the local journalism movement to succeed within the existing newsroom, there’s going to need to be a very different system of rewards to replace the dreams of Beltway punditry or a glamorous foreign beat. In fact, the rewards of the more pointed kind of journalism that blogging allows—the ability to develop a voice and a personality and to connect daily with readers—are considerable.

I tried to address this very thing in 2004 in a post that examined the assertion (by traditional media) that bloggers are in it for the money. I encourage you to read that post, because it speaks directly to what Bunch envisions. His vision has pretty profound ramifications for journalism altogether, all of which I view as good. I’m personally sickened by the farm system we’ve created, one in which budding reporters enter small market shops with one foot out the door. I’m heartened by the rise of personal media that is turning LOCAL citizens into reporters every day.

One of the ways bloggers get paid is through the currency of ego. It’s a form of status that’s recognized within, a feeling of being needed, of having a recognized place in the things of life — a voice, as Bunch calls it. Ego is an interesting part of the human condition, and it drives certain people forward more than even a paycheck.

I was taught about this from a very successful guy who was gifted at getting people to talk with him — to trust him and reveal things that they perhaps ought not to be revealing. He did this by always making the people he was interviewing feel like the most important people around. People left feeling great, although they never really learned much about my friend. He would turn every question about him around, so that the interviewee was talking about themselves. He taught me that there are many different currencies in life, and that ego was even stronger than money.

I had an employee once who was big on pay raises, because his father had taught him that this is how a company shows its appreciation for work done. That may indeed be true, but it limits life’s currencies to only one, but as my friend taught me, there are many more. At some point, they may cross, but the original currencies of journalism, I believe, have more to do with the chase for the story, recognition among peers and the public, the curiosity of how things work, the ability to influence others and make a difference, creative expression and a sense of worth that’s tied to one’s occupation. In a sense, the blogosphere is all this and more, and that’s why I agree so strongly with Bunch that the model for tomorrow is likely within that which is being evolved by bloggers.

As I’ve written many times, media is my life and has always been so. When I first got into the business in 1969, the newsroom was a place for people who found the trade one where a single person could make a different. My first news director was an old newspaper guy named Don Loose at WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee. When I became assignment editor and a member of his management team, he called me into his office and taught me the following:

“Terry, people are motivated in this business by three things: ego, working conditions and money. If somebody asks you for a raise, first ask yourself these questions: Does this person know their value in the newsroom? Am I making him feel valuable and appreciated? If the answers to those is true, then ask yourself this: Does this person’s equipment all work — his recorder, his typewriter? How does he get along with the photographers? Is there enough light at his work station? If the answers to these questions are all positive, then think about giving him the raise.”

When I retired from news management in 1998, 95% percent of the newbies I interviewed had gone to “communications” school, because they “wanted to be on TV.” These are the people who write on the discussion boards, “I just got my first job and want to know what I need to do to get my second?”

I have no problem if that kind of crap goes away permanently, because that’s the kind of ego that’s destroying the industry and something we can all do without.

I’ve said before that tomorrow’s reporters are being trained today in the school of personal media, including the guy or gal who sees drama of the school board personalities, issues and, yes, even the meetings. Life is like that. It sees a void and fills it.

In this case, we created the void ourselves, and I’m excited to be alive as the correction is underway.

(Hat tip Romenesko)

Daniel Schorr has a new book and the interviews are beginning. At age 91, Schorr is the oldest, full-time journalist in the business. He writes and broadcasts for NPR now, and his mind is still sharp as ever. If there ever was a “traditional journalist,” it is Daniel Schorr, and he told the Sacramento Bee that he’s glad he’s not any younger.

Q: In the book’s introduction, you talk about adapting from one medium to another, having worked in newspapers, radio and television. I wonder what you think about the changing media landscape today.

A: At my age, I look at it and say, “Boy, I’m glad that’s for other people.” I couldn’t stand what’s going on today (as a reporter). Of course, the changes are partly technological. You no longer have to rely on a great newspaper like the Sacramento Bee or on a television network to get news. You can go on the Web and get anything you need.

And I’ve found that people are now deluged with information. In my day, as a newspaper man, radio man and television man, I had the feeling I was telling people something they wouldn’t otherwise know. That’s no longer true. I’m glad I’m not 20 years younger, because I’d be very discouraged.

…Q: In some commentaries, you touch on the latest journalistic trends, sometimes in not so complimentary a way. Such as blogs and citizen journalism. Is this a form of news gathering that you embrace?

A: I can’t embrace it. Not after what I’ve been through at the hands of the copy editors’ desks. I have suffered many, many arguments about what I’ve wanted to say — whether it was grammatically correct, factually correct and all of that — and I want everybody to have to experience what I experienced. But today, your blogger is totally free. He is his own reporter, his own editor, his own publisher, and he can do whatever he wants.

A person like me who believes in the tradition of a discipline in journalism can only rue the day we’ve arrived at where we don’t need discipline or anything. All you need is a keyboard.

When I read stuff like this, my heart goes out to guys like Schorr, who worked in an era of centralized media power. I have too much respect for him to call him a dinosaur, but the reality is that his ideas are based in a cultural era that is no more. We can wax about how good it was and lament the losses that we feel, but the extent to which it is purely nostalgia does more harm than good.

If the “discipline” of journalism is what needs reviving, it simply won’t happen by driving with our eyes on the rear view mirror. Nostalgia is not revival. Never has been. Never will be.

(ASIDE: If you read the link, take note of the condescending tone of Schorr’s questioner as regards anything new.)

One of the big topics of discussion around the blogosphere this weekend was an emotional response to an Arizona RIAA lawsuit against an illegal downloader of copyrighted music. The music industry sadly continues to pursue legal remedy for its own malfeasance, and reports about various suits are commonplace discussions. Suing your customers is, after all, a highly crappy business practice.

Most of these stories are about sharing files, but this one had a twist.

According to a Washington Post story about the suit, “the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer” — that the MP3 files the defendant made on his computer from legally bought CDs are “unauthorized copies” of copyrighted recordings.

This is what got the blogosphere all riled up. How DARE they tell me what I can do with MY music! The only problem is that the story isn’t, well, precise. The assertion regarding the simple copying of a song for personal use was not a part of the lawsuit.

Blogger and new media thinker Robert Scoble jumped aboard the story and wrote that the RIAA is actually doing consumers a favor by forcing artists away from the fold.

This behavior will make sure people buy (or steal) music directly from bands. See how Radiohead did it. By doing that, the price for music will go down thanks to fewer intermediaries. RIAA is just helping us get rid of them, which is good for everyone who loves music…Radiohead put the power of setting the price in OUR hands. Brilliant.

The truth about the matter appeared in the comments of Scoble’s post and elsewhere, and the sources of the story backed off.

Three commenters to Scoble’s post, Jerry, Louis and Shelley, raised serious questions about the journalistic practices of those who spread the story and used the opportunity to criticize citizens media as a result.

JERRY: Have you actually read the briefing, or are you just basing your sarcasm on information you skimmed from other blogs? Why not read the actual briefing then make your argument?

LOUIS: It seems pretty obvious to me from these comments that none have read the actual briefing. It doesn’t say the RIAA wants to prevent is (sic) from copying music for your PERSONAL use.

SHELLEY: The summary judgment and the follow-up brief all specifically state that the law suit is based on the distribution of the files, not the ripping of the files from CD…Facts, people. I know facts aren’t fun, but can’t we try focusing on the facts? At least, from time to time?

JERRY: So much for the accuracy and reliability of “citizen journalism”. And people complain about the accuracy of the MSM?

JERRY: I guess the adage “don’t believe everything you read” applies to the blogging world, too. Too bad most bloggers don’t apply it. Most are more interested in getting linked to than getting facts straight.

With respect to Jerry, this case shows the value of citizen journalism, not its shortcomings. As I pointed out in Scoble’s comments, the Washington Post was involved in this. They may have gotten their “tip” from the bloggers, but they were involved just the same.

Before the blogosphere, before citizen journalism or citizen media, before the people formerly known as the audience had the opportunity to publish for themselves, mainstream media outlets could operate with impunity with regards to the shaping of stories. This is called setting the information agenda, in which the only spin that matters is what the media company says.

Imagine, if you will, if the Washington Post had run such a story 10 years ago. Who would’ve provided the correction? Where would it have been published? How far downstream would the story have gotten before the focus shifted?

The point is that citizen journalism doesn’t function like the mainstream press of years gone by, because comments to a blog post or story ARE A PART OF THE STORY. News is a process, not a finished product, and this is crystal clear in the world of citizen journalism. As such, the fact that Jerry and Louis and Shelley could help set the record straight makes the case FOR the practice.

They and others might argue that the incorrect story shouldn’t have ever seen the light of day in the first place, but that idealistic perspective strikes at the heart of the problem of gatekeeper journalism. Journalists are no less human than anybody else, and despite elaborate (or not) systems of vetting, mistakes are commonplace. If we accept that, then any open and transparent method of immediate correction moves journalism forward, in my judgement, and not backwards, as many in traditional media would have us believe.

As the rise of personal media continues to offer newbies the wherewithal to take unto themselves the duties and responsibilities of the craft of journalism, cries of “foul” from the High Priesthood of the Big J are getting noisier and more frequent. I don’t write about this much anymore, because I so long ago crossed over that it’s really very hard to “go back” and revisit memes long since put to death in my own mind.

But a phrase that I heard recently in a conversation — and have now found twice in current reading — is forcing a little examination. The phrase is “real reporting,” as differentiated, I suppose, from dishonest, fake, false, feigned, imaginary, imitation, invalid, unreal, or untrue reporting. “Real reporting” is apparently something reserved for the keepers of an imaginary holy flame, one that must be kept burning if democracy is to continue. “Real reporting” is only for the few, and anyone who attempts entry to the holy flame through a side door is, well, an imposter — a purveyor of that which is “unreal.”

Here’s a statement made on a recent discussion board thread about the future of journalism: “If advertising continues to erode, who will do the ‘real reporting?’”

Indeed. Without advertising, all we’ll have is dishonest, fake, false, feigned, imaginary, imitation, invalid, unreal, or untrue reporting. Sounds absurd, but that’s the argument.

My friend Jeff Jarvis (who knows better) even fell into the trap the other day in a great post decrying the ridiculous New York Times op-ed piece by an influential group of J-school deans suggesting a license for local (real?) reporting (just like the church tried to license the printing press back in the day). Jeff did a wonderful job of deconstructing the piece, but he then got on a different kind of high horse in comparing newspaper reporting to TV reporting (my umbrage may be due to my background in TV news). He argued that TV news could be improved if it merged with print (not a bad thought), but…

It could only help broadcast newsrooms to get a sense of real reporting and to get the work of hundreds of print journalists with cameras.

With respect to Jeff, I’ve worked in plenty of TV newsrooms where original reporting was the norm. The stereotype that all TV does is rip off headlines from the “real” press is not a universal truth.

But on the overall issue of “real reporting,” the wonder and beauty of journalism and the First Amendment are that they don’t qualify the press, because the press cannot be controlled or confined by any form of legal definition. For the press to BE the press, it must reflect the nature of those who are drawn to the trade — curious, rebellious, skeptical, resistant-to-authority, tenacious, creative, and resourceful people — not the type prone to any sort of conformist license.

Who is a reporter? We’re all reporters. Who does journalism? We all do journalism. Our audiences and approaches may be different than those who wish to set and maintain the information agenda in any community (or country), but no one has the right to say that your form of journalism is any more “real” than mine.

And so I feel, once again, compelled to state that the institutional, “professional” press in this country is the fruit of Walter Lippmann’s social engineering dreams, that democracy can only work if an educated elite (press included) leads the riffraff that is everybody else.

“Real reporting” is threatened, according to all this noise of late. But let’s be “real” here. If that’s to happen, how would we do without “real reporting?”

“We” will do just fine, because maybe what the world actually needs is some “real reporting,” as defined not by the status quo, but by the people who are sick to death of the monotonous, self-serving crap of those who wish only to protect themselves.

This is a core disruption brought about by the cultural shift from one that is hierarchical and neatly organized (a.k.a. Modernism) to one that is more participatory and chaotic (a.k.a. Postmodernism). And this is why is so important to be focused on people and not institutions when studying the changes around us.

So if advertising continues to erode, who WILL do the real reporting? I don’t know, but I think we’ll figure it out.

Pew’s latest study is a highly worthwhile read. FAMILY, FRIENDS & COMMUNITY examines teens and their use of social and personal media. If you can get your mind around this, it’s possible to see opportunities for local media companies.

Content creation by teenagers continues to grow, with 64% of online teenagers ages 12 to 17 engaging in at least one type of content creation, up from 57% of online teens in 2004.

Girls post pictures and write blogs; boys are into video sharing (sounds like a contemporary TV newsroom, huh?).

The survey found that content creation is not just about sharing creative output; it is also about participating in conversations fueled by that content. Nearly half (47%) of online teens have posted photos where others can see them, and 89% of those teens who post photos say that people comment on the images at least “some of the time.”

However, many teen content creators do not simply plaster their creative endeavors on the Web for anyone to view; many teens limit access to content that they share.

Let’s step back a minute and think about this for a minute. Two-thirds of online teens (59% of all teens) are creating their own “content” (to use a media term), many of whom are using it to originate conversations or discussions with others. Can anybody deny the reality that everybody’s a media company with this kind of data? Can anybody deny the ramifications to those who used to have this playing field to themselves?

There is a significant opportunity for local media companies here and it’s not the tried and untrue “ad-supported content” model, whereby we “invite” people to share their content and “host” it on our big, branded portal websites (making “them” conform to “our” standards in the process).

Instead, we need to find ways to enable the advancement and growth of personal media in our communities by teaching, encouraging, growing and enabling everything about it. The Web is our platform, not just our little corner thereof.

(This was first published this week in our Media 2.0 Intel newsletter)

Scanning the headlines of media trades reveals a blur of stories about this company or that one positioning itself for betterment within the world of the Web. This “positioning” comes at the expense of others who are also bumping elbows within the glut of new ventures, each screaming for the attention of the Holy Grail: audience.

NBCU wants to set the prices for downloads of its programs, so the network pulled the plug on its relationship with Apple’s iTunes, where a recalcitrant Steve Jobs wants to keep the price at $1.99. NBC and Fox have launched Hulu, a really nice site for streams, etc., with the not-so-small exception of severe restrictions on how those downloads can be used (only by you) and how long they’re available (five weeks).

Meanwhile, the RIAA is running out of gas in its efforts to sue its customers, and Mark Cuban is doing his best to stop pirates from stealing videos. There are arguments about user-generated content, and the New York Times editor is continuing to do his best to separate the professional from the amateur in terms of journalism.

Lawsuits here and there, take down notices for YouTube, Comedy Central loading a complete archive of “The Daily Show,” and on and on we talk about how this new medium can serve us and our business needs.

And then comes a headline like this:

Nokia Predicts 25% of Entertainment by 2012 Will be Created and Consumed Within Peer Communities.

Okay. Think about this for a minute. While we’re fighting for our rights and our business models, people are playing with media tools that used to be the sole purview of the professionals. And what are they doing? Entertaining themselves and each other. And Nokia thinks this will grow to one-fourth of entertainment in five years’ time. And get this: these don’t give a ripple chip about the things mentioned above that are attracting all of our attention today.

Eyeballs are not an infinite resource, so the problem is how will value be sustained in a world where 25% of entertainment is home made?

“From our research we predict that up to a quarter of the entertainment being consumed in five years will be what we call ‘Circular’. The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups - a form of collaborative social media,” said Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia.

You see, folks, the rise of personal media — fueled by fluid outside pureplay companies — is the real threat to traditional media, not applications that steal copyrighted material or otherwise interfere with the way things used to be. We’d better get onboard this “revolution,” or we risk real irrelevance downstream.

Gordon Borrell says it best, “The deer now have guns. What do you do when the deer have guns? Get into the ammunition business.”

Ask yourself this: What am I doing to make sure that I have a place at the table in the rise of personal media?

The following email was a part of Poynter’s online news discussion list, and its author has graciously allowed me to republish it here. I do so, because it reveals the ease with which a high quality news website can be built on a dime. I know I sound like a friggin’ broken record sometimes, but if students can do this, why can’t we?

Follow the links, especially the one that leads to the author’s website.

I wanted to share our experiences at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism in creating a student journalism website on a tight budget. As most journalism educators will know, there are often few resources or the technical support to develop multimedia websites.

TheThunderbird.ca showcases the work of the students on the core Multiplatform Journalism course that I lead at the J-school.

The site is run on an installation of Wordpress MU, the multiple user version of this versatile software. Wordpress offers an easy to use content management system, making it simple for the students to learn how to post stories. Wordpress MU can be a little temperamental, meaning that some plugins won’t work with it.

As Wordpress was designed as blogging software, most of the designs, called themes, look like blogs. Our main challenge was finding a theme that looked more like a news website but was also easy to customize. We ended up going with Brian Gardner’s Revolution News theme, a bargain at US$99 for use on a single website. I was able to tweak the theme, even with a minimal of knowledge of PHP or CSS.

The Audio Player plugin by 1Pixelout makes it simple to insert audio into stories, creating a customizable Flash player.

The Video Wordpress plugin by daburna works with just about every video hosting service under the sun and enables you to embed Flash video.

Other useful plugins include:

• Share This to allow visitors to share content via social bookmarking sites
• Shift This to create captions from the alt tag of an image
• Simple Tagging to insert tags on posts

There are still many more things we hope to do with the site.

Alfred Hermida
Assistant Professor
The School of Journalism, University of British Columbia

I am not suggesting that a highly scalable site can be built for nothing, but there’s no reason we can’t use this software to build a host of verticals detached from our main Media 1.0 websites.

Frankly, I’m really impressed with what professor Hermida has done in BC, and I wish him and his students well.

There are two headlines back-to-back in Romenesko’s RSS feed today that speak volumes:

Plain Dealer didn’t bow to political pressure in blog dust-up
Denver Post skewers governor in rare front-page editorial

In the former, the ombud for the Cleveland Plain Dealer speaks about his paper’s decision to shutter its political group blog and fire a liberal blogger. His crime was supporting a candidate and writing about the same candidate on the blog. The paper’s policy is carved from the canons of journalistic ethics:

“You can’t contribute to a political candidate and then write about his or her campaign, either as an employee or as a paid free-lancer for The Plain Dealer, on paper or online.”

But Jeff Jarvis asks why they hired the bloggers and created the blog in the first place, if it was not to hear the opinions of involved citizens.

The logic of all this is baffling. The paper knew it was hiring opinionated people. But it didn’t want involved people. That is a “difficulty.”

What we’re really seeing is the view of journalism from inside the cloister of the newspaper: Once you take a dollar from the paper, once you take its communion, you are transformed: You take a vow of political celibacy. You have no opinions and if you do, you hold them to yourself, like impure thoughts. You don’t participate in your community but stand apart from it. And you don’t mingle with those outside the walls who speak the vulgate, blog. So the priests of the paper said that the bloggers were sinners. And they were excommunicated.

The second headline from the Romenesko feed tells the story of a Denver Post editorial that refers to Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter as “Jimmy Hoffa,” “a toady for labor bosses” and “a bag man for unions.”

These two stories are different sides of the same coin, and they both make a case for the return of argument to journalism. They point out the silliness of the line between personal, paid support and corporate editorial support. Purists will argue that the person who wrote the Post editorial didn’t or hasn’t supported an opponent of the governor, but I would argue that this is semantics because support is support, whether its in the form of cash contributions or otherwise. Others will argue that the Post editorial was well thought out and agreed upon by the editorial board of the paper — that elite group of educated and informed people who guide the decisions of the paper. No name-calling; just thoughtful prose. Not.

But what’s really sad about these two instances is how they are viewed by people watching from the outside — the people formerly known as the audience. Those people are arming themselves with personal media technology and speaking for themselves in ways that are not part of the canons. The Cleveland paper was right to try and display some of that in its group blog, but it was wrong to put it under its banner (and its canons). You can’t have it both ways, and the worst thing we can do is try and drag that which is new into the model that’s being disrupted. When will we learn that?

Just like everything else, the canons of journalistic ethics — and how we apply them to our work — need to be reviewed. Otherwise, we’ll be clinging to them — with looks of deep pride — all the way to the ocean floor.

As J.D. Lasica so beautifully pointed out in his book Darknet, Hollywood’s War Against the Digital Age, one of the driving influences behind the personal media revolution is the quality of the stuff we’re getting from the incumbent media players these days. Once people begin entertaining themselves, the next logical step is for them to begin entertaining others. Hence, a whole new media industry is being birthed right before our eyes (although we may not have eyes to see it).

There are two things in the news that I want to point to that validate this shift.

One, the AP and AOL teamed up for a poll that shows 62% of Americans say that TV programs are getting worse, compared to 22% who say they’re getting better (they must have included asylums in the survey). These people are more likely referring to network television, which seems more interested in that which is inexpensive to produce and that which will appeal to a younger audience. While I don’t disagree with these findings, I do think that you can find good shows these days but that they’re coming from other places. I rarely watch network fare anymore. Cable and the Web do just fine for me.

But the point is that people have this sense that there’s a lot of crap (I’ve been using that word a lot lately) out there, and crap has a way of driving people away from the smell. This is not smart in a world where attraction is the new promotional model.

Two — and this one is even more fun — George Simpson wrote a fascinating piece for MediaPost this week about how the porn “industry” (he puts that in quotes) is having problems dealing with prosumer or “amateur” producers. It makes sense that the “industry” most disrupted initially by J.D.’s personal media revolution would be porn, which has been amateurish all along. Read George’s piece. It’s funny as hell (as usual):

DVD sales and rentals have dropped by 15% to 25% in the last year, and one porn industry executive estimates that no more than 15% or 20% of the porn in the wild is “legitimate.” While legitimate porn may seem like an oxymoron, I think he means that most P2P distribution of porn is ripped off from his “industry.”

…The “industry” thinks perhaps it will fight the onslaught of homemade amateur porn videos by promoting the “quality” of its professional videos.

Porn is a $50 billion “industry,” and an increasing share of that is going to people who are now able to make their own porn and publish it online. Who needs the “industry” to do that?

You may be nodding your head saying, “Well, yeah, Terry. Anybody can produce crap.” I watched a wonderful documentary the other night on one of the independent film channels about how independent producers “push the envelope” as regards sex. In this context, “push the envelope” is a euphemism for “show more skin.”

A part of the documentary was about the newest thing — are you ready for this? — “unsimulated sex!” What a nice way of saying porn. So these producers, led by the French, of course, are now getting “real” actors to have sex in front of the camera to “push the envelope.”

One guy was asked, “What’s the difference between this and porn?”

“Lighting,” he responded in all seriousness.

We may all chuckle at this, but there’s a lesson here for anybody in the entertainment business these days with everyday people making videos of their own “unsimulated sex” and selling them on the Web.

As George notes in his piece, it’s one thing to put a camera on the nightstand and videotape yourself boinking your significant other (or not), but it’s quite another “to produce 42 minutes worth of drama that will hold an audience week after monetizable week until you have amassed enough content to move into syndication, where the real money is.” This is certainly true, but only for now.

Those who underestimate the prosumer movement do so at their own peril.

I’ve been going over Accenture’s new Global Content Study 2007, and there’s some pretty good stuff here. I recommend you download the thing and have your own lookie-loo.

Accenture interviewed more than 100 leaders and decision-makers in the media and entertainment sectors…to gauge their views of where the greatest opportunities and challenges will come over the next five years. The study, called Beyond the Hype: How New Content and Technology are Redefining the Future of Media, provides, among others, these major findings:

• 62% of executives look to “new platforms as being the most important key to growth…
• 53% of executives surveyed indicated that “short form content” offered the largest opportunity for “new content”…
• Asked what they believed was a top threat to the business, over half of the executives (57%) identified “consumer-based competition” or “user-generated” content…
• Critically important is the need for digital readiness and a future technology road map…

I’m especially impressed that these “leaders” view “consumer-based competition” as a threat, because that’s exactly what they need to be considering. Accenture is a big name in the business consulting world, and it’s interesting to see them picking up on things that we’ve been talking about here for years.

Still, this report also reveals some problems on the road to the future. These are found in quotes from various participants. While most of the quotes used are spot-on, a couple left me gasping.

“We will look to the user side and learn from the YouTubes and the MySpaces who are training consumers in media usage. We will look at their experience and leverage it.” Executive, Reed Publishing

This kind of thinking always amuses me. “Leverage” is business-speak for borrowing (taking) a little to make a lot. It’s condescending, to say the least, and I would argue that the “training” of consumers that’s taking place on these sites can’t be leveraged in any way that supports a mass marketing paradigm. Here’s another gem:

“One of the things I think amateur user-generated content is most likely to do is to generate new respect for the outstanding creative professionals in our industry, who can tell a truly great story.” Henry Schleiff, CEO, Hallmark Channel

Here, Henry is telling us that great content will glow amidst all the crap that is user-generated content, and I have mixed feelings about that. Good storytelling always rises to the top, but that presumes certain subjective standards in what is or isn’t good. I mean, I didn’t like what we used to call the “MTV style” of video, where the camera moves around a lot. That’s pretty much a standard these days, so who’s to say that one set of standards is “better” than another?

Yes, we are going through tremendous change, and I agree with Accenture’s conclusion that the changes confronting us today are “akin to the changes witnessed with the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press in 1450 or Marconi’s transatlantic broadcast in 1902.” The media powers in those days had similar reactions, and while we’re all out here trying to project where things are going, the truth is nobody really knows.

But isn’t that what makes it exciting?

Bloggers from the Seattle area got together last night in the studios of my client, KOMO-TV. I’ve been involved in many of these, and this was by far the best organized and best attended one of the lot. Some of that’s attributable to the web hip community of Seattle (we invited 800 active bloggers), but I’ve got to tip my hat to Chris Pirillo, the gnome himself, who help coordinate the event.

Chris is a little vertically challenged (hence, the chair), but there’s not a smarter new media guy on the planet, and his reputation in the local web community is as pristine as it is globally. Chris was the consummate master of ceremony (Gnomedex is next week, folks), and Fisher Communications’ Rob Dunlop (the only guy in a suit — no tie, though) was a gracious host and photographer.

One of the things I really enjoy about initial blogger meet-ups at stations is how the station people react to the eclectic blend of personalities before them. Bloggers are, after all, just people, and these kinds of meetings help break down walls and put a face on what most media types view as wannabe journalists. KOMO-TV anchor team of Kathi Goertzen and Eric Chapman mingled, made new friends and promised that they would soon start their own blogs.

We’ve a bunch of other cool things planned with bloggers in the Seattle community, and I’m looking forward to becoming a regular fixture there. Seattle has a rich blend of all sorts of wonderful blogs and a local web that’s second-to-none. It’s an exciting time for new ideas and new thinking in this world we call “new media.”